Fontaines D.C. A Hero's Death LP

Rolling Stone's The 50 Best Albums of 2020 - Rated 33/50!
Paste's The 50 Best Albums of 2020 - Rated 40/50!

Barely a year after the release of their acclaimed debut album Dogrel (which charted Top 10 in the UK, earned a Mercury Prize nomination, Fallon performance, and #1 Album of the Year positions for BBC 6Music and Rough Trade), Fontaines D.C. have returned with an intensely confident, patient, and complex sophomore album. A Hero's Death arrives battered and bruised, albeit beautiful - a heady and philosophical take on the modern world, and its great uncertainty.

In a world full of bands straining to be good enough, Fontaines D.C. aim for the skies - these Dublin punk lads flat-out want to be your favorite band, nothing less. Result: The year's most full-throated, stouthearted, old-school-guitar rabble-rousing. Irish to the core (the 'D.C.' stands for 'Dublin City'), they rush through their second album, A Hero's Death, with a Clash-y spirit, a slashing Gang of Four guitar attack, and Pogues-worthy humor. When Grian Chatten snarls 'I Was Not Born,' he's throwing down the gauntlet to challenge all other bands on both sides of the Atlantic.

Fontaines D.C. sound far gloomier, both sonically and lyrically, but also more mature and pointed. Their gothic tendencies are heightened, and new reference points are introduced: Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, Scott Walker and Leonard Cohen.