CD Review: Fontaines D.C. - A Hero’s Death

FONTAINES D.C.
A Hero's Death
PARTISAN / LIBERATOR

2020 is officially the year of doom and gloom, so it feels fitting that LP2 from these trailblazing post-punks would be distinctly crushing. 

The guitars are tuned low and simmer with a ghostly, almost unsettling angularity. The melodies they warble out are lustrous and catchy, but spun through a filter of flagrance à la Grian Chatten’s dull, numbing howl that leaves the whole affair feeling like a car crash that you just can’t help but stare intently at. 

This all surely reads as negativity, but let us be clear: A Hero’s Death is certainly worth diving into. It’s a record that revels in the kind of off-kilter garishness that a good horror flick does – certainly not for kids, and admittedly rather niche, but for those to whom it does appeal, there’s a damn good time to be had.