Fontaines D.C. have wasted no time springing back into action with the announcement of new album, ‘Skinty Fia’, masterfully developing a charismatic curiosity for sensory and literary expansion. A feat which in turn, has manifested into a career-long dedication to unconventional narratives, and idiosyncratic instrumentality.
A hyper-realised, strenuously impassioned tale of lust, ritualistic-yearning, and psychological toxicity, the Irish troubadour’s latest offering ‘Jackie Down The Line’ runs wild and detached like the damned spawn of Pina Bausch’s ‘Rite Of Spring’, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Killing Of A Sacred Deer’, via a plethora of richly Irish folklore.
With broadened horizons and introspective macabre for days, ‘Jackie Down The Line’ is yet another example of Fontaines D.C. doing what they do best; perceptively infiltrating the borders of life and theatricality with stunning cause and effect. Neither refined, nor as raucous as some of its precursors, ‘Jackie Down The Line’ is all together something unfamiliar, and consequently dismantling. In this tale of centralised identity and possessive connection, Ireland takes the form of banded self-reflection, as Fontaines D.C. directly address the very land they’re born and bred on, whilst making what might be their most personal move to date- moving on.
Be it the subtle whir of riff-laden maturity, or, the Othello-esq tragedies enforced by Grian Chatten’s nihilistic protagonist, ‘Jackie Down The Line’ is a spiritually upheaving exploration of untameable desire. A thoroughly human depiction of boundless artistry, that omnisciently transcends the realms of tradition, success, and perhaps even Fontaines D.C themselves.
Photo by Filmawi
