Americans will proudly trumpet their Irish heritage even if their only connection for generations has been Guinness soulfully supped in a shamrock-festooned theme pub, but in pop this impulse goes the other way.
Bono, Hozier, the Script – all allow their accents to drift across the Atlantic. So it’s refreshing to hear a singer, Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten, embrace of all the bleating music of a Dublin accent. For listeners not versed in the Irish punk scene, his extremely characterful voice is as bracing as Alex Turner’s was when Arctic Monkeys broke out, and he uses it to voice a boisterous cast of personae: bullish yuppie on opener Big; ranting preacher on Chequeless Reckless; fond documentarian on Liberty Belle: “You know I love that violence that you get around here / That kind of ready-steady violence.” That song and others here are fantastic ramalama surf-punk hits, but the five-piece have real range on this perfect debut. A stark Joy Division-style bass line props up The Lotts, with Chatten’s lines filling each bar to the brim, resulting in a deceptively simple, powerfully melancholy song. Roy’s Tune is equally sad and good, a steady Britpop ballad with a touch of the naivety of Ian Brown’s earliest performances. Television Screens has the kind of melody that would work in a traditional Irish folk ballad, but done as something Fugazi might play in their more tender moments. This is the kind of songwriting quality that bands can take years to reach, or never reach at all: brilliant, top to bottom.
