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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
On their third album, the five-piece ambitiously broaden their style, making for a breathtaking collection that’s like nothing they’ve ever done before.
9mo
100
Skinty Fia is Fontaines’ best work to date: its maturity is apparent from the very start, as is the band’s capability and talent.
9mo
100
With their third album, Fontaines D.C. have grappled with weightier topics, experimented with more genres, and pushed themselves further than they have in the past. What’s even more impressive is that in doing so they’ve made their best album yet.
9mo
100
Through the clashing of narrative and musical expressionism, it's a tome where murder, heartbreak, and all the souls lost between these disparate notions reside – and Skinty Fia is a rich, full-bodied third entry, with Fontaines DC proving they’re not only here to stay, but here to dominate.
9mo
100
'Mother Ireland' is hovering over and guilt-tripping the lads making these mordant songs of alienation and disaffection.
9mo
100
A magnificent third album which serves as the crowning point of a career that is, excitingly, still in its infancy.
9mo
90
Fontaines D.C. maintain their strong trajectory without any dramatic deviation from the principles that have sofar worked so well.
10mo
90
A painfully honest album by a group who are concerned by what they have experienced. They are not preaching or offering answers, but they are posing the important questions.
9mo
90
The third is where it all coalesces, where they take everything they’ve learned and apply it with all their new-found expertise and experience. When it works it’s a masterpiece.
9mo
90
Fontaines D.C. have created an epic that keeps on progressing throughout, pushing way beyond their previous boundaries.
9mo
90
Arguably, the band’s best offering yet.
9mo
85
The album fits perfectly with the mood of the times and it’s apparent that these songs were built with an honest, emotional grit.
9mo
84
Moody, grittily philosophic, and cautiously revealing, Skinty Fia spotlights a distinct band as they pivot toward mid-career status, mining the expressive paradoxes on which longevity is built.
9mo
80
This is what they have always been best at ... bringing the listener into their world and showing them the darkest corners alongside the rays of light.
9mo
80
What drives it forward isn’t morbidity or anger, but a search for connection. It’s this that makes it not a dirge, but an oddly bright snapshot of life’s confusions from a band capable of capturing them brilliantly.
9mo
80
Skinty Fia — both phrase and record — might hint at a grim extinction event, but by staring down the prospect of built-in obsolescence, the loss of self, Fontaines D.C. sound full of new life.
10mo
80
Skinty Fia is all about those superior responsive mechanisms and as such seems as much a final part of a trilogy as anything else.
9mo
80
With Skinty Fia Fontaines D.C. deliver a brooding post-punk sensual feast with a distinctly Irish flavor. Longing, alienation, and malice simmer under the surface.
9mo
80
The Irish post-punk band’s most demanding and musically adventurous album is also its most open-hearted, striking a perfect balance between tough and tender.
9mo
80
If it wasn’t for Grian Chatten’s doomy vocals, this could be a different band to the one that made Dogrel.
9mo
80
On Skinty Fia, Fontaines DC have nailed their themes of urban decay and defiant immigrant soul. They just need to find the courage to fully emerge from the chrysalis of their indie and post-punk influences.
9mo
80
On their third album, the Dublin alt-rockers trade in their punky full-pelt approach for measured, compelling insights.
9mo
80
By no means simple yet never overtly difficult, ‘Skinty Fia’ is a self-confessed awkward third album. A record about growth, and how subtle shifts in identity can lead to profound outcomes, it finds Fontaines D.C. moving ever outward into a realm of their own.
9mo
80
‘Skinty Fia’ is an intense listen. One centred on authenticity and passion; rooted in the need to find and express purpose, and the quest to solidify identity.
9mo
80
The tensions that consume Fontaines – musically, personally, philosophically – continue to propel them forward: Skinty Fia is another triumph for this era’s most vital group.
10mo
74
Skinty Fia won't tell you much about whether that vein of insecurity that runs below the band's surface level of confidence can fuel good art indefinitely; in its best moments, though, it may make you want to hear the band crack open that ground and let their strangest selves out completely.
9mo
71
On Skinty Fia, Fontaines D.C. dip their toes into several different sonic pools that lie outside their typical post-punk and gothic inspired sound.
9mo
60
Fontaines D.C. return with Skinty Fia, a dark and moody album steeped in the history and politics of Ireland.
9mo
58
The Irish band returns with a third album of post-punk that fails to elevate its Bauhaus and Joy Division-aping tendencies.
9mo
Skinty Fia is an analysis of evolution and change, but this new album reflects above all the own progression of a band that climbs the ladder with talent.
[Today 2 rather concise reviews compared to usual, as you may have noticed I don't have much time to write at the moment, but it's a nice week so here we go].
Fountains D.C is one of the archetypes of the Post-Punk Revival band of this last decade but the Irish prove on this 3rd album that they want to break those chains forever. I ... read more
Starting out unmistakably Irish In ár gCroíthe go deo (Gaelic: In Our Hearts Forever) is like a Celtic vocal chant that is not only layered majestically with rich choral harmonies and arguably Grian Chatten’s most enchanting vocal to date, but it’s also masterfully arranged as it shifts and builds with clearly defined momentum and intensity with unanticipated and almost The Prodigy styled drum n’ bass breakbeats, the urgency and the emotion build in perfect ... read more
From 83 to 92. It´s very underrated and I think they really did something genius with this one.
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Track List
| 1 | In ár gCroíthe go deo 5:59 | 86 |
| 2 | Big Shot 4:13 | 81 |
| 3 | How Cold Love Is 3:24 | 70 |
| 4 | Jackie Down The Line 4:01 | 87 |
| 5 | Bloomsday 4:30 | 77 |
| 6 | Roman Holiday 4:28 | 84 |
| 7 | The Couple Across The Way 3:56 | 70 |
| 8 | Skinty Fia 3:55 | 83 |
| 9 | I Love You 5:05 | 87 |
| 10 | Nabokov 5:21 | 83 |
Total Length: 44 minutes
Year End Lists
| #1 | / | Hot Press |
| #1 | / | MondoSonoro |
| #1 | / | Northern Transmissions |
| #2 | / | Les Inrocks |
| #2 | / | Louder Than War |
| #3 | / | OOR |
| #3 | / | WXPN |
| #4 | / | DIY |
| #4 | / | God Is In The TV |
| #4 | / | NME |
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Added on: January 11, 2022