walking upstream…
Fontaines D.C.
photo: paul hudson from united kingdom · cc by 2.0 ↗Fontaines D.C.
Fontaines D.C. formed in Dublin in 2014, five students who met at music college and bonded over poetry before they bonded over bands, self-publishing verse together before they wrote songs. Their 2019 debut 'Dogrel,' named for a rough-and-ready form of Irish balladeering, married the clipped urgency of British post-punk to Grian Chatten's flat, half-spoken Dublin brogue and a lyricism steeped in the city's streets and its writers. Mercury-nominated out of the gate, they widened their palette across 'A Hero's Death' (2020) and the UK chart-topping 'Skinty Fia' (2022) before the glammy, string-swept 'Romance' (2024) turned them into festival headliners. Throughout, the tension between Irish tradition and imported punk defines them.
the sound in question
2024
StarbursterFontaines D.C.
walk the tributaries ↓
The Pogues1980s · Celtic punk / Folk punk / Irish folk
Grian Chatten has named The Pogues' debut 'Red Roses for Me' among the band's chief influences, describing the group as a modern take on traditional Irish music with grittier production and a gritty singer. The homage runs deep enough that the video for 'Too Real' was modelled on The Pogues' 'A Pair of Brown Eyes.' What Fontaines take is less a sound than a stance: the conviction that you can sing plainly about Dublin, drink and emigration in an unvarnished Irish voice and have it read as modern rather than nostalgic.
listen: upstream & here
1985
A Pair of Brown EyesThe Pogues
2019
Dublin City SkyFontaines D.C.
listen forSet 'A Pair of Brown Eyes' next to 'Dublin City Sky,' the woozy singalong that closes 'Dogrel' — both are drink-slurred ballads that let a lilting, folk-adjacent melody carry a bruised lyric about the city, ending in a communal, arm-around-shoulders sway rather than a conventional chorus.
Joy Division1970s-80s · Post-punk / Gothic rock
Joy Division are among the post-punk touchstones critics and the band alike reach for in describing Fontaines' early sound — the angular, propulsive strain of late-1970s northern England rather than anything ornamental. It surfaces in the motorik drive and taut, repetitive basslines of 'Dogrel's faster tracks, and in Chatten's detached, deadpan delivery riding on top of a rhythm section that simply keeps pushing.
listen: upstream & here
1979
DisorderJoy Division
2018
Too RealFontaines D.C.
listen forPlay 'Disorder' and then 'Too Real' — both ride a restless, driving bass-and-drums engine under a guitar that scratches rather than strums, with a vocal that stays flat and urgent instead of soaring.
The Fall1980s · post-punk / art punk
Comparisons to The Fall follow Fontaines chiefly because of Chatten's talk-sing delivery — the flat, ranted, half-spoken vocal Mark E. Smith made a signature. Like Smith, Chatten will abandon melody entirely to bark or intone a lyric as a repeated slogan, letting rhythm and repetition do the work a tune would carry elsewhere.
listen: upstream & here
1980
Totally WiredThe Fall
2019
Chequeless RecklessFontaines D.C.
listen forLine up 'Totally Wired' with 'Chequeless Reckless' — both are built on a hectoring, repeated vocal phrase spat over a lurching riff, the singer reciting a list of grievances rather than singing them.