Angular, aggressive and acerbic, last year's ‘Skinty Fia’ found Fontaines D.C. setting an increasingly stagnant post-punk scene alight. Now, though, vocalist Grian Chatten has temporarily struck out on his own with ‘Chaos For The Fly’, revealing a far more introspective and mellow side to his songwriting.
The driving guitars of his band are gone, with a suite of sounds taking their place, but Chatten's venomous lyrics remain, providing a connecting thread on an LP that can feel like an unfocused hotch-potch of ideas. Amid its character sketches and vivid evocations of place, ‘Chaos For The Fly’ teems with nihilism, pessimism, even unbridled hatred.
All Of The People zeroes in on the false friends you can make when you're in a successful band and culminates in a warning cry that people "just wanna get close enough to take the final shot".
The repeated calls of "Seeking only answers / Hearing only lies" on I Am So Far further gild this undercurrent of distrust in people, however close they may be.
Elsewhere, The Score opens with programmed drums and clicks that wouldn't be out of place on Radiohead's ‘OK Computer’, while Bob's Casino launches into a big band scene before Chatten settles into a Johnny Cash-esque drawl.
For Pain closes the album with a lilting, looped guitar melody, where Chatten sings of moving on from friendships with a sense of bittersweet calm. “My hand made to assure ya / Now watch it wave,” he sings, before a grungy swell of instrumentation gives the album its strongest moment.
Whether through necessity or choice, this is the sound of a man maturing and having the confidence to do what he wants, and whatever that means for Fontaines D.C’s next LP is a tantalising prospect. For all the plaudits given to his band, Chatten has struck more adventurous shapes here than he has during his day job. The only issue is that it seems like every time an idea comes to fruition, it’s tossed out in favour of something else. ‘Chaos For The Fly’ is a tasting menu, and it never lets you try the full dish.
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