Bellissimo

Fontaines D.C.’s ‘Skinty Fia’ Deserves all the Accolades, Here’s Why.

Layla Bellissimo, MPA

Fontaines D.C.’s third studio album Skinty Fia is a masterful collection of love, loss, heartbreak and pride for oneself and one’s country. The Irish band writes from the vantage point of having reached commercial success after their first two albums, alongside the nagging feeling of leaving behind their beloved homeland. In this review, I aim to convey the complexities of this story lyrically, while providing my personal favorite listens on this ten song powerhouse of an album. 

Our opening track is titled “In ár gCroíthe go deo” which translates from Gaelic as “In our hearts forever”. Right away the band begins telling the long political history of the Irish. Band frontrunner Grian Chattan was inspired by the news story of Margaret Keane, an Irishwoman living in Coventry most of her life who wished to have the track’s Irish epitaph as her headstone when she passed. The Church of England ruled that the Gaelic words may be interpreted as too political and provocative in nature without an English translation, thus disallowing the move. This song was a direct response to the ruling, using lyrics such as “Gone is the day/Gone is the night” to emphasize the growing divide between the emotional states of Irish and Englishmen. When Chattan pens the word “she” in the song, it directly relates to Keane defining the “Only answer of reason”, a swelling of her Irish pride and wanting to honor her homeland in her final resting place. Upon the song’s release, combined with the political uproar from the Irish community, the ruling was overturned and Keane’s tombstone was finally engraved. 

In ár gCroíthe go deo is my personal favorite starting track out of Fontaine’s four studio albums. The saying is repeated in the background of Chatten’s primary vocals throughout the song, emphasizing the political undertones that will eventually weave their way into every story within the album. The sense of Irish belonging in this opening track provides a window into the lengths the band goes to claim their heritage proudly. They are not ones to shy away from pointing out the tense relationship between the Irish and English. 

In ár gCroíthe go deo is followed directly by Big Shot, the sole song on this album entirely written by band member Carlos O’Connell. The track’s lyricism deals with the heavy emotions of leaving behind their homeland due to their newfound fame. Lines such as “I traveled to space/I found the moon too small” or “I’ve been living it all/I’ve been leaving it all” address the complexity of living abroad and feeling as though one has “sold out” for fame. This emotional response is prevalent in other tracks on the album, but scarcely done so directly as it is in the second track. Personally I find it easiest to resonate with Big Shot, as someone who moved from the quiet life of the midwest to New York City. I understand the push and pull of leaving the comforts of home, and when I go to return, I find that I have changed too much to truly belong in that space anymore. It is a lonely feeling that I think the band has perfected with the lyricism as well as instrumentals. Big shot has my personal favorite acoustics on the album between verse two and the final chorus, the haunting guitar refrain encapsulating those feelings of emptiness perfectly. 

How Cold Love Is, the third track on the album, addresses the side effects of those newfound emotions of Big Shot. The song deals with isolation, loneliness, and depression, but interestingly enough, not always directly. Using “they” instead of “I” for the chorus lines of “They sit in their room/They all consume” and “They fall in their bed/They wanna go dead” implies that this depression is out of oneself, and could apply to the masses of Irish youth that use quick thrills to cope with these hard feelings. How Cold Love Is, is the most direct implication of drug use and addiction on the album. Chattan sits in these dark feelings, singing: “I’ve been so entwined/And the feeling’s coming for the millionth time” directly followed by: “And the answer is so sweet” indicating the usage of something temporary as a vice to cope with the side effects of long endured struggles. “The anti is so cold” Also tells us that the antithesis of that sweet vice is coldness everlasting. 

In Jackie Down the Line, the band returns to the social divide between the Irish and British. “Jackie” is derived from the British slang derogative “Jackeen”, a word used to poke fun at Dubliners – implying they are more British than Irish by waving the Union Jack. Fontaines weaves the push and pull between Ireland and Britain as a love story here, with “Sally” in the middle. Sally in my opinion is a euphemism for another former colony of Britain, with Chattan singing, “My friend Sally says she knows ya/Got a funny point of view/Says you got away with murder/Maybe one time, maybe two” Implying the former colonizer negatively impacted the lives of both Sally, another former colonized nation, (or ex lover in this happenstance) and now Chattan (Ireland). The singer drives home the point that Sally never set up a future for their relationship, and that they themselves will act selfish, never fully emotionally connecting to the relationship to protect themselves with lyrics like: “For care I’ll always come up short/It’s only right” and “I don’t think we’d rhyme/I will wear you down in time”.

The theme of an emotionally disconnected lover being pursued by an abusive partner that has a history of destruction, acts as an excellent parallel to how the band views Britain’s relationship with their homeland. This is the first time on the album I think we get that heavy emotional upheaval tied to Ireland’s relations with their former colonizers. This song makes me proud to sing not because my ancestry is overwhelmingly Irish, (despite my love for a good pint of Guinness) but because it also acts as a shot at all of the current political affairs in our world that the band deems morally corrupt. 

Bloomsday is the midpoint track in the album, named after the Irish holiday celebrating the life of author James Joyce – a literary critic, poet, and author that was a major inspiration for the band. There is a general sense of apathy in verse one with lyrics like, “You put on your coat and a smile/The saddest one I’ve seen for a country mile” and “Saw the city hall in flames/Suppose it doesn’t do much these days”. We can begin to visualize a setting where the singer is stuck in a place where citizens don’t trust their government or their circumstances. Despite what I think are some of the more upbeat (or perhaps just less sad) instrumentals on the album, Bloomsday is a song that leaves me forlorn with its words. “Looking for a thing that no doer’s done” and “We won’t find it here, my love” signifies to me that whatever the singer is looking for, whether that be a better life or a brighter political future, they haven’t found it nor do they have the energy to. 

I will say Bloomsday is probably the song I skip the most on this album if I don’t do a whole listen through. While I believe it serves its purpose connecting the former half of the completed work to the second, it is not as impactful instrumentally or lyrically to me as some of the other tracks.        

Directly following as the sixth track is Roman Holiday, which was my first exposure to Fontaines as a band. The airy instrumentals play to other tracks’ themes of distant yearning and longing for Ireland, with haunting guitar riffs and echoes that bleed from chorus to verse. Roman Holiday contains the most direct cultural references with Dalymount Seat, Daily Star Newspaper, and DART trains all mentioned throughout the song.  Chattan sings: “When they knock for ya don’t forget who you are/Skinty Fia” signalling the plea to hold fast to one’s Irish origins despite growing calls for the singer to declare “whose side they are on”. This is the first track where I feel a direct call to inter Irish civil ideological differences with one liners like: “I don’t want to see the queen, I already sing her song” making ‘already’ sound exactly like ‘IRA’ (Irish Republican Army). The final refrain challenges the listener: “Can you feel it/Won’t be long/Our day will come” signalling the Irish collective as ‘our’ and calling for freedoms of Irish citizens from the British. Roman Holiday ties in Irish nationalism to the band’s ever complex viewpoint of their homeland, despite their current physical distance from it.   

The Couple Across the Way is the most jarring listening break in the album for me. The seventh song is accordion heavy, an instrument that Chattan’s mother gifted him the Christmas before the album’s release. The somber notes entwine with lyrics describing an old couple’s love for one another enduring despite the spark of their youth. The singer is observant of the changes around them in both their personal life and society with lines such as: “You use voices on the phone that once were spent for me” and “The world has changed beyond our doorstep/People talk and act so strange”. These notes signify that the world has moved on around the pair, and the singer is looking back on the old days longingly. 

While I originally thought this song was one of lost love, the last few lines changed my mind upon re-listening. “Across the way moved in a pair with passion in its prime/Maybe they look through to us and hope it’s them in time” Provides a hopeful end to their love story, signifying that  love does not have to be all consuming all the time, but steady and enduring. While this song may seem the most out of sorts in the album, I actually think it ties in with the comparison of Ireland as a country and the Irish people. The majority of Skinty Fia’s songs utilize personal relationships as an allusion for the band’s feelings about Britain’s former occupation, but The Couple Across the Way provides a more practical, surface level look at love and pride that is tangible, raw, and tender.  

The eighth track shares its title with the album. Skinty Fia provides a unique sound that solidifies Fontaines’ reintroduction as a band that can successfully reshape an album even on the tail end of listening time. The blend of gritty, mean guitar sounds and heavy drums shape the story of a jilted lover positioning himself as unaffected by the loss of the person he once was. Lines like “I’ve got that jealous stripe/Maybe I am that type” and “I’ll see you twenty Mary’s later when your tongue is talking straighter” hint that the singer is actually ruminating in his disdain for the cessation of relationships around him. I think the jealousy here is two fold, one for the people he left behind, and two for the fact that ‘they’ were left behind in an old life he wishes to go back to. Skinty Fia translates to “damnation of the deer” from Gaelic, and the album cover contains an extinct Irish Elk dominating the foreground. This extinction of the singer’s past, and the feelings of coming back to see how people have changed, how they themselves no longer fit into their prior mold, has altered their perspective. The song Skinty Fia addresses the feeling of going back to a place you don’t belong anymore while wrestling with the fact you might not have had a choice in moving forward.    

The penultimate song of the album is arguably Fontaines D.C.’s most famous. I Love You transforms into a bleeding, open declaration of devotion to Ireland. While the former songs in the album go back and forth, ruminating on complicated and often fleeting feelings, I Love You signifies that no matter what, the band recognizes they carry that love with them everywhere. While  In ár gCroíthe go deo is their most political opening title across all albums, I Love You is arguably their most political song yet. The line “Selling genocide and half-cut pride I understand” highlights Chattan’s acknowledgement of Irish youth’s apathetic nature towards their government and their potential ‘buy in’ to British nationalism that is half-cut. (British slang for being slightly intoxicated.) Essentially Chattan admits to  forgiving his Irish kin for ‘drinking the Kool Aid’ while simultaneously criticizing the government for allowing their nation to slip into consumerism – because he has felt it too. In “When the cherries lined up I kept the spoilings for myself/ ‘Till I had 30 ways of dying looking at me from the shelf”, there is an allegory to Judas betraying Jesus for thirty silver marks. Chattan is emboldened during I Love You, openly admitting his remorse for abandoning his home land physically, and sometimes ideologically. This remorse turns to adoration, acknowledging no matter where he goes in the world he will speak of Ireland and keep its system, youth, and criticisms alive in his heart. 

For me, I Love You is the most impactful Fontaines song across their entire discography. Most times if a song is among their most popular I’d say it’s for a reason. The lyricism here is that reason. “And I loved you like a penny loves a pocket of a priest/And I’ll love you ‘till the grass around my gravestone is deceased” Always makes me emotional, and I often think back to my own complicated relationship with America, the land I was born in. I read somewhere recently that: “If you don’t weep for the state of America, you don’t love her enough.” And it is true. I weep for America. I mourn for America. I love my country while I acknowledge the shortcomings of our government, our society. I think this is a parallel summation for Chattan’s feelings for Ireland in I Love You. Even while he is physically apart from Ireland, even while he is criticizing or jealous or angry, he is utterly devoted to her in the face of injustice.

Skinty Fia rounds itself out with Nabokov, the heaviest grunge feel on the album thus far. References to Vladimir Nabokov’s work Lolita are found in the lyrics: “Daze ya/Phase ya,” where the band draws comparison to Dolores Haze’s “I talk in a daze, I walk in a maze”. Nabokov feels like a continuation of I Love You, signalling an undeniable devotion to Ireland turning to an unreliable narration of obsession. Lines like: “I’ll be your dog in the corner” and “I will light your cigarette/But you’re so good looking” could potentially signal the pipeline from love of country to feeling powerless against the forces that wish to control it.

Nabokov was always the hardest for me to wrap my head around in terms of placement. Oftentimes it feels not fit as the album ender, where I Love You would wrap the album up in a nice, neat bow. However upon re-listening, I have found that there is confusion, longing, jealousy, rage, love, acceptance, all within the words and chords of Nabokov. I now conclude that the heavy hitter that is the final track marks a flawless summation of the complicated Irish history.  

All in all, Fontaines D.C’s Skinty Fia is an exemplary ode to the band’s homeland, narrating the complicated path the band has traversed to accept their own flaws and stay true to their roots. The blend of political themes and tangible love stories, combined with Irish post-punk energy, provides listeners with a multitude of ways to relate the album to their own personal struggles. I know for me this album stands out as a favorite due to the fact I can take lyrics at face value, or dig deeper and empathize with Chattan’s complicated feelings. My rankings are as follows; 

1. I Love You
2. How Cold Love Is
3. Big Shot
4. Skinty Fia 
5. Jackie Down the Line
6. Roman Holiday
7. In ár gCroíthe go deo 
8. Nabokov
9. The Couple Across the Way
10. Bloomsday

And now, my overall ranking for this album on my Threads Scale has to be Fully Woven and an overall rating of 9.3/10. I don’t give this ranking often, but Skinty Fia deserves it for the intimate connections of Irish history with the themes of love, loss, and longing. Give it a listen and I promise you will find something you enjoy. 

Until next week, 

-Layla ❤