Fontaines D.C. - A Hero's Death (Partisan Records)

Dublin band Fontaines D.C. release their second album, A Hero's Death (the title came from a line from Brendan Bethan's play The Hostage) where the subject matter seems to be about the battle between happiness and depression.

The album has quite a few ballads with the band citing Suicide, The Beach Boys and Leonard Cohen as influences but I can hear a lot of Blur in the songs too especially on the track You Said.

Opening track I Don't Belong is a moody affair as singer Grain Chatten repeats the song title where he says that "he does not belong to anyone" much like the band they sound unlike anything else around right now and do not belong to anything other music you might hear in the album chart.

Things pick up on Love Is The Main Thing, the band have a knack of repeatedly singing the song's title that it lodges in your brain. Underpinned by a guitar riff and a snarling drum beat the track is sure to become a live favourite.

Televised Mind and A Lucid Dream up the pace both with a sense of excitement that will become moshpit anthems when the band tour next May.

I can hear slightly the Beach Boys influence on the album title track with the disembodied harmonies bad upbeat lyric.

The more I listen to the album the more I am drawn in: the melodies weave into your head as most of the songs climax with that repeated line over and over.

The album closes with No where Chatten says that we should "just appreciate the gray" on another moody ballad that is very melancholy. Give the album a listen, you might just become a fan.

The band play in 2021:

7/8th May - Manchester Academy
11th May - Leeds o2 Academy
18th May - Sheffield o2 Academy

www.ticketmaster.co.uk