A Hero's Death

AlbumJul 31 / 202011 songs, 46m 45s
Post-Punk
Popular Highly Rated

Fontaines D.C. singer Grian Chatten was with bandmates Tom Coll and Conor Curley in a pub somewhere in the US when the words “Happy is living in a closed eye” came to him. It was possibly in Chicago, he thinks, and certainly during their 2019 tour. “We were playing pool and drinking some shit Guinness,” he tells Apple Music. “I was drinking an awful lot and there was a sense of running away on that tour—because we were so overworked. The gigs were really good and full of energy, but it almost felt like a synthetic, anxious energy. We were all burning the candle at both ends. I think my subconscious was trying to tell me when I wrote that line that I was not really facing reality properly. Ever since I\'ve read Oscar Wilde, I\'ve always been fascinated by questioning the validity of living soberly or healthily.” The line eventually made its way into “Sunny” a track from the band’s second album *A Hero’s Death*. Like much of the record, that unsteady waltz is an absorbing departure from the rock ’n’ roll punch of their Mercury-nominated debut, *Dogrel*. Released in April 2019, *Dogrel* quickly established the Irish five-piece as one of the most exciting guitar bands on their side of the Atlantic, throwing them into an exacting tour and promo schedule. When the physical and mental strains of life on the road bore down—on many nights, Chatten would have to visit dark memories to reengage with the thoughts and feelings behind some songs—the five-piece sought relief and refuge in other people’s music. “We found ourselves enjoying mostly gentler music that took us out of ourselves and calmed us down, took us away from the fast-paced lifestyle,” says Chatten. “I think we began to associate a particular sound and kind of music, one band in particular would have been The Beach Boys, that helped us feel safe and calm and took us away from the chaos.” That, says Chatten, helps account for the immersive and expansive sound of *A Hero’s Death*. With their world being refracted through the heat haze of interstate highways and the disconcerting fog of days without much sleep, there’s a dreaminess and longing in the music. It’s in the percussive roll of “Love Is the Main Thing” and the harmonies swirling around the title track’s rigorous riffs. It drifts through the uneasy reflection of “Sunny.” “‘Sunny’ is hard for me to sing,” says Chatten, “just because there are so many long fucking notes. And I have up until recently been smoking pretty hard. But I enjoy the character that I feel when I sing it. I really like the embittered persona and the gin-soaked atmosphere.” While *Dogrel*’s lyrics carried poetic renderings of life in modern Dublin, *A Hero’s Death* burrows inward. “Dublin is still in the language that I use, the colloquialisms and the way that I express things,” says Chatten. “But I consider this to be much more a portrait of an inner landscape. More a commentary on a temporal reality. It\'s a lot more about the streets within my own mind.” Throughout, Chatten can be found examining a sense of self. He does it with bracing defiance on “I Don’t Belong” and “I Was Not Born,” and with aching resignation on “Oh Such a Spring”—a lament for people who go to work “just to die.” ”I worked a lot of jobs that gave me no satisfaction and forced me to shelve temporarily who I was,” says Chatten. “I felt very strongly about people I love being in the service industry and having to become somebody else and suppress their own feelings and their own views, their own politics, to make a living. How it feels after a shift like that, that there is blood on your hands almost. You’re perpetuating this lie, because it’s a survival mechanism for yourself.” Ambitious and honest, *A Hero’s Death* is the sound of a band protecting their ideals when the demands of being rock’s next big thing begin to exert themselves. ”One of the things we agreed upon when we started the band was that we wouldn\'t write a song unless there was a purpose for its existence,” says Chatten. “There would be no cases of churning anything out. It got to a point, maybe four or five tunes into writing the album, where we realized that we were on the right track of making art that was necessary for us, as opposed to necessary for our careers. We realized that the heart, the core of the album is truthful.”

812

8.1 / 10

Heady, funny, and fearless, the Dublin band’s second album is a maudlin and manic triumph, a horror movie shot as comedy, equal parts future-shocked and handcuffed to history.

4 / 10

8 / 10

Fontaines D.C. take a juggernaut stride forward on A Hero’s Death

The Dubliners' massively successful debut album ‘Dogrel’ almost destroyed them. One year on, they sift through the fragments that remain

8.1 / 10

The buzzy Irish band digs deeper on their quickly released 2nd album.

Just over a year after their critically lauded debut, Fontaines D.C. are back for more — and this time around, things are different.

Rolling Stone reviews Fontaines D.C.'s 'A Hero's Death.'

If you thought another rollicking, rabble-rouser was on the cards, it’s time to think again.

The Irish band aren’t scared of admitting their own insecurities on this impressive follow-up to their Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut

This is not more of the same from the Dublin post-punk band – instead, 'A Hero's Death' takes Fontaines DC's sound to new places

Setting a high bar on a debut album has always been a double-edged sword, as demonstrated here on A Hero's Death, which is a fine album that is nonetheless a step down from the booze-soaked sticky floors of Dogrel.

8 / 10

Fontaines D.C. Are as Uncertain as Ever, in a Good Way, on 'A Hero's Death' By

A band who belonged to the world for a season locate themselves again | Gigwise /> <meta name=

7.0 / 10

Fontaines D.C.’s 2019 debut, Dogrel, placed them among IDLES and Girl Band as rising stars of the post-punk revival, but with an especially literate and distinctly Irish bend to their music.

9 / 10

Within fourteen months Fontaines D.C. went from playing a genial, sweaty show at The Good Mixer to selling out Brixton Academy. The band’s explosive

7 / 10

Having been blindsided by their meteoric rise to fame, Fontaines D.C. follow up their debut with a more introspective, dissociative second album

7 / 10

8.5 / 10

A Hero's Death by Fontaines D.C. album review by Leslie Chu. The full-length comes out on July 31st via Partisan Records and streaming services

The Dublin band deliver a difficult but powerful second album full of songwriting that stares life in the face

70 %

Though Dublin neo-post-punkers Fontaines D.C. had been gaining steam for two years before their 2019 debut, Dogrel still hit the indie scene like a bomb.

Album Reviews: Fontaines DC - A Hero's Death

73 %

Instead of releasing Dogrel part two, the Dublin band push their vision further

The Dubliners return, bowed but not beaten by success. New music review by Katherine Reilly

8 / 10