Track review: Fontaines DC - Big

It takes precisely ten seconds of Fontaines DC’s new song ‘Big’ for Grain Chatten to get you under his thumb and inside his brain. “Dublin in the rain is mine,” he bellows atop a furious wave of crushing guitars, introducing the band’s debut album ‘Dogrel’ as one that’s set to make them frontrunners in a new scene that’s making the Irish capital the most exciting place for guitar music on the planet at the moment.

“We felt that great ambition was a sickness,” the band say of the track, which comes with a new video which sees Grian’s 11 year-old neighbour strutting his way down a Dublin street with all the swagger and ambition of a rockstar. “He’s got the presence of a hundred frontmen,” the band agree.

The five-piece might believe that there’s downsides to shooting from the stars, but in every move they’ve made over the last year, they’ve shown a world-beating ambition. From the biting honesty and confrontation of last single ‘Too Real’ to the short, snappy ‘Big’ and its gargantuan statement of a chorus - “My childhood was small, but I’m gonna be big” - they’re showing all the hallmarks of a huge, important rock band. ‘Dogrel’ is set to see the prophecy come true.