One of the most striking things about Fontaines DC's breakthrough last year was the quivering joie de vivre of a band carefree enough to call a song 'Sha Sha Sha'. But there's next to none of that here; second album A Hero's Death is jaded, at times gloomy and at times almost cynical.
It seems no coincidence that the record kicks off with the sombre 'I Don't Belong', a song smacking of burnout from the relentless touring that followed Dogrel; its title suggests one thing, and the full refrain "I don't belong to anyone" is that of a band cutting loose of their past in no uncertain terms – and it's great.
'Love is the Main Thing' is dense and claustrophobic as is the vitriolic 'Living in America', and there is an awful lot more down-tempo reflection; where Dogrel was for the most part a heady post-punk romp, A Hero's Death is more considered, sticking to the genre but shifting the focus from the second word to the first.
True, the taught recent single 'Televised Mind' is pure high-octane fuzz and fun, but even when the band circle close to the injections of joy a la 'Boys in the Better Land' and 'Liberty Belle' from last year – as they do on 'I Was Not Born' – there seems to be a newly abrasive and sardonic edge to Grian Chatten's vocals (already fast becoming iconic in their own right, a kind of Irish Liam Gallagher) which hangs over the entire record.
The pick of the slower moments – run close by the Interpol-esque 'You Said' – is 'Oh Such A Spring' an apparently tender reflection on apparently good times past (now, however, words are turning to tears and we're watching folks go to work just to die…). You can't help feeling that Fontaines have skipped straight from an idyllic spring full of life and hope to a bitter, bleak autumn, but by not simply redrafting Dogrel the band have shown they're not a flash in the pan, they're here to stay in all their weather-beaten glory. Expectations for A Hero's Death were sky high, and Fontaines, honest to themselves and nobody else, rose perfectly to meet them.
Words - Joe Ponting