Fontaines DC review, Skinty Fia: Irish band’s third album is a fierce, dirge-like thundercloud of ruination

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter Now Hear This for the inside track on all things music Get our Now Hear This email for free Get our Now Hear This email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Chatten, the band’s main lyricist, recently told Rolling Stone about the prejudice they’ve experienced in the UK: the IRA jokes, the “top o’ the mornin’s” and the grunted “go home”s. Through it all, Chatten intones: “Gone is the day, gone is the night.” It’s the vocal equivalent of a stubbornly held gaze; the band dare the church to look away first. On the latter, Chatten takes a snarling glee in assuming a toxic character who’ll “hurt ya, desert ya… got away with mur-da”. Chatten begs, “I’ll be your dog”, over a menacing guitar that reverberates like echoes against the grimy concrete of a multi-storey car park.