This past Friday was a significant one for the modern wave of Irish music. Not only did Fontaines D.C. drop a certified SOTY contender, but The Murder Capital saddled up to the still-young AOTY conversation with an expansive and infected new record called Blindness.
We’ve been treated to a wealth of notable singles from the Dublin post-punk crew’s follow-up to 2023’s lethal Gigi’s Recovery, including the incendiary “The Fall” and gritty “Words Lost Meaning.” Now, the floating “A Distant Life” comes into view as a spotlight track, showing off a Cool Britannia-flavored jangle-pop vibe that lightens the album’s overall mood.
“I wrote the lyrics for this one in transit to one of the many inspiring service stops on tour in the UK. I’d been listening to a podcast called Poetry Unbound about Margaret Atwood’s poem ‘All Bread’ and felt the urge to write,” says frontman James McGovern. “I knew I wanted the music to be naive and unaffected, much like true love itself, so myself and Irv [Tuit, guitarist] stood outside the back of the venue in Liverpool that evening. I asked him to play two chords back and forth. It all came together in a flash with some added flair from Irv, and in that moment the distance between my girlfriend and I shrunk slightly, if just for a moment.”
Blindness can be heard in full via Spotify below. It’s a hell of a trip from one of music’s finest young bands.