It has been just over a year since Irish rockers Fontaines DC released their debut album, Dogrel, in April of 2019, but they’re already ready for more. Today, the group has announced their second album, A Hero’s Death, and shared the title track.
The video for the post-punk tune features fellow countryman and Game Of Thrones star Aiden Gillen playing a tormented talk show host. The band’s Grian Chatten says of the song and accompanying video:
“The song is a list of rules for the self, they’re principles for self-prescribed happiness that can often hang by a thread. It’s ostensibly a positive message, but with repetition comes different meanings, that’s what happens to mantras when you test them over and over. There’s this balance between sincerity and insincerity as the song goes on and you see that in the music video as well. That’s why there’s a lot of shifting from major key to minor key. The idea was influenced by a lot of the advertising I was seeing – the repetitive nature of these uplifting messages that take on a surreal and scary feel the more you see them.
The title came from a line in a play by Brendan Behan, and I wrote the lyrics during a time where I felt consumed by the need to write something else to alleviate the fear that I would never be able follow up ‘Dogrel.’ But more broadly it’s about the battle between happiness and depression, and the trust issues that can form tied to both of those feelings.”
The band also notes of the album, “It feels like time hasn’t ticked since we announced our first record just over a year ago. We wrote these songs during the 12 months after finishing Dogrel as a necessary reaction to assure ourselves we will always be the band we set out to be. A sincere thank you to everyone who has supported our music since and before then.
Watch the “A Hero’s Death” video above, and below, find the A Hero’s Death art and tracklist.
1. “I Don’t Belong”
2. “Love Is The Main Thing”
3. “Televised Mind”
4. “A Lucid Dream”
5. “You Said”
6. “Oh Such A Spring”
7. “A Hero’s Death”
8. “Living In America”
9. “I Was Not Born”
10. “Sunny”
11. “No”
A Hero’s Death is out 7/31 via Partisan Records. Pre-order it here.
