Kneecap: Fenian’s review – their new album is terrifying, triumphant yet tortured | Fish

Fat Fenian, listeners are treated to the sounds of rapper Mo Chara expressing his desire to live outside the small town in County Meath. He does this in a familiar way – starting with the line “run, why, I’m sick of your toys” – and yet, it’s surprising. After all, the tales of intoxicating madness on Kneecap’s previous album, 2024’s. Fine Artit only took place in the cities: Mo Chara once said that his favorite place was “the joy of a dull, unsightly place”, perhaps like the music of Belfast that had so much invested in it. Nothing about Kneecap has given the impression of a group dedicated to the hardiness after a simple bucolic life.

And yet, who can blame her for wanting to turn it off and run away from it all? The two years since the release of Fine Art have been tough for the Irish rave-rap trio, and it’s hard to fathom what their rising reputation has to do with their music. Fine Art was warmly received – it was strong, funny and original – but it was quickly drowned by the controversy that began when Mo Chara was said to have shown the Hezbollah flag on the stage of a London gig in November 2024. Later he was accused of terrorism, which he denied – Kneecap said that he did not agree with Hezbollah, all people and “always” and “Condemn”. thrown out of court. During this time, there were gigs and tours banned, forbidden to enter Canada and Hungary (Kneecap’s vehemently opposed decisions), and the singing of both Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch because Kneecap’s Glastonbury 2025 is due to be dropped. Badenoch had already clashed with them for their bad Republicanism when he was business secretary, trying to block the money he was given – and Kneecap excelled at that, too.

“PR has done it for us – when you’re mad we’ve won,” wrote fellow rapper Móglaí Bap on Fenian track Big Bad Mo, but it’s not as straightforward as that. Fish now they find themselves being talked about more than listened to – more people have an opinion about them than they have ever heard their music – which is a messy and sometimes destructive place for an artist to be.

You get the feeling from Fenian that Kneecap might know this, though the most impressive thing about this album is its success. It makes for a fun listen, with the help of Mo Chara and Móglaí Bap’s bilingual skills and a great soundtrack from DJ Próvaí and producer Dan Carey. A carnival-esque, Massive Attack-y atmosphere opens with a reenactment of Chara’s experiment and ends with the line “history will remember the pieces of evil and you will never be forgiven”; Smugglers & Professionals croon “I’ll never learn my lesson, always the government’s obsession” over the snare sound, while Liars Tale – a huge explosion of stabbing rave synths, twisted house drums and a twisted bassline that mentions T Rex’s Sons of the Revolution – decries Kesair curent. The song Palestine, includes the west of Belfast and the West Bank, appears as a guest from the rap from Ramallah Fawzi and ends “we will not stop until everyone is free”.

But lurking beneath the headlines – so crowded to begin with – is another Fenian side. As it progresses, a different attitude takes over: a little less, confused. Big Bad Mo’s braggadocio is set in a harsh, acid-house speakeasy that changes in tone: as the song goes, it becomes darker and less intense, bleak and menacing. In fact, the best hedonistic moments of Fine Art are impossible to find here. Drum’n’bass-fuelled headliner Headcase is broke, but “he doesn’t have a plan… he can’t handle it”. Cold at the Top brings Mo Chara back to his favorite party spot, but he’s caught up in the emotions and self-hatred born from his celebrity – “I’m full of myself, I’m full of shit”. Cocaine Mountain, driven by strumming guitars and a haunting chorus by Lankum’s Radie Peat, is fear, dread and anxiety.

As funny and insightful as Liars Tale or Brit-bashing An Ra are (“thank you so much for sharing your culture with us,” offers the latter, “Jimmy Savile and HP Sauce”), the best thing here is the Kae Tempest-assisted closer Irish Goodbye, a meditation on the suicide of Móglaí Bap’s mother. The music is beautiful, sunny and clashing with elegiac lyrics. It’s a brilliant finale to an album that’s inspiring, intelligent and thought-provoking.

What the album is not, even when taken as a whole, is the triumph of criticism it has been known for in other areas. Fenian is more complicated, interesting and scary than that, which makes sense. Kneecap recognition is a tricky business and one that can be very difficult: Fenian shows that he has more than enough to pull off.

This week Alexis listened

John and Beverley Martyn – Auntie Aviator
Stories about Death of Beverley Martyn it took me back to 1970’s The Road to Ruin, especially the dark Auntie Aviator-falling-over-the-city and the bleak – if misguided – romantic optimism.