In its original form, post-punk was essentially punk rock with the rock stripped out, putting a premium on rhythm over riffs, atmosphere over songcraft, and abstract lyrical impressionism over circle-pit chants. And on first pass, Fontaines D.C. seem like faithful students. Over the past year, they’ve swiftly staked out an elevated perch alongside IDLES and Shame amid a young class of groups from the Britain and Ireland who are embracing post-punk antagonism as a necessary response to modern-day discord. And in Grian Chatten, they have a frontman blessed with Ian Curtis’ intense stare and Mark E. Smith’s megaphone mouth, favoring a sternly delivered, free-ranging shout-speak that frequently veers far outside the lines of traditional pop-song structure.
But Fontaines D.C. are fueled by neither IDLES revolutionary fervor nor Shame’s festering disgust. They’re not raging against the current state of affairs as much as lamenting the local communities and culture in danger of being steamrolled by the march of modernity. As such, Fontaines D.C. are very much a post-punk band reclaiming a certain pre-punk innocence. Their origin story is so quaint and anachronistic, it verges on flaneur cosplay, with the quintet reportedly bonding over a mutual love of Joycean poetry and pub nights spent scribbling out and reciting verses to one another. That old-school approach finds its analog in a raw, robust twin-guitar attack that’s more jangly than jagged, nodding to ‘60s garage, surf, and early rock‘n’roll while projecting a confrontational fury.
Fontaines D.C. hail from Dublin, a fact that would be instantly obvious even if Chatten didn’t open Dogrel by emphatically declaring, “Dublin in the rain is mine/A pregnant city with a Catholic mind.” His unvarnished, melody-averse brogue is the band’s most distinctive feature, and his lyrics are loaded with the sort of regional-landmark references and vivid scenery that will send non-Irish listeners to Google Street View. But while Fontaines D.C. are eager ambassadors for Dublin’s past, they’re less enchanted with its present status as one of Europe’s most bustling tech hubs—and the widening income inequality that comes with it. The jackhammered opener “Big” centers around a bold declaration—“My childhood was small/ But I’m going to be big!”—that initially echoes another famous statement of purpose: Oasis’ “Rock N’ Roll Star.” But in a world where there’s no rock‘n’roll stardom left to aspire to, “Big” doubles as a cautionary caricature of blind ambition and aspirational greed.
The rest of Dogrel likewise walks the tightrope between surly and celebratory. “Too Real” hits the streets with a careening intensity rarely heard since The Walkmen’s urban-paranoia classic “The Rat,” but as guitarists Carlos O’Connell and Connor Curley shoot off feedback sparks like a getaway car scraping a guardrail, Chatten takes a surprise back-alley respite from the surrounding clamor, marveling at the wintry skies and garbage swirling in the wind. And if the staccato rumble of “Sha Sha Sha” depicts the very act of existence as just another clock-punching routine (“Now here comes the sun/That’s another one done”), the sweet, simple rattle of a tambourine appears partway through like a flower rising from a sidewalk crack.
Fontaines D.C. have cited fellow Dublin noisemakers Girl Band as a crucial influence, as much for their eccentric spirit as their abrasive sound. “Before that, the only way to sound Irish was to be fuckin’ ‘diddly-diddly-aye,’” Chatten recently told Noisey. “They modernized Irish music massively.” To wit, the band’s most heroic anthem, “Boys in the Better Land” may have been inspired by Chatten’s encounter with an Anglophobic Dublin cabbie, but it takes the form of a riotous, British Invasion-styled rave-up that frames distinctly local issues as universal truths.
Still, as a band defined by its love/hate relationship with its hometown, Fontaines D.C. can’t help but indulge in one hallowed Celtic-pop tradition: the Guinness-hoisting last-call ballad. Chatten fully embraces his inner Shane MacGowan on “Dublin City Sky,” a comedown closer that finds the singer plying his rigid voice around a sensitive, romantic serenade—and though it doesn’t yet feel like a natural fit, the poignancy is undeniable. Slow-dancing in some Chinatown bar, feeling “as drunk as love is lethal,” Chatten reminds us that the most effective means of psychological survival in a big, ever-changing city is to savor the intimate moments.
