Towards the end of last year when I started trying to put together my list of the best songs of 2018 there was a selection that I kept coming back to and one of them was a song by the Dublin band, Fontaines D.C.

The first time I heard Boys In The Better Land was on the Sunday night of Electric Picnic back in September – it was phenomenal. A common complaint that is levelled at a lot of the music that we hear on the radio these days is just how interchangeable it can seem, but there was no mistaking Fontaines D.C. for what they were. Lead singer, Grian Chatten, was making no effort to discuss the thick Dublin accent that he was singing with and it was fantastic to hear.

There is so much to love about this piece of music. The lyrics across the song almost slip in and out of spoken word as Chatten sings about wanting to escape from a suffocating hometown, and the different people who live there, and those who were lucky enough to get out.

“But the boys in the better land,

You’re always talking ’bout the boys in the better land…”

This is a sentiment that is immediately recognisable by anyone who listens to the song as many of us will have felt that it is time to get away from their usual surroundings to get a greater sense of independence.

“If you’re a rock star, porn star, super star,

Doesn’t matter what you are,

Get yourself a good car,

Get out of here…”

The instrumentation on the track expertly compliments with its exciting guitar and emphatic drumming, expertly representing the urgent sentiment of the song. The effect is to keep the song rocketing forward, never allowing the energy to drop or for that sense of independence and freedom to lose it’s appeal.

They’re going to be huge.

MK