Album Review: KNEECAP, FENIAN

KNEECAP's past 18 months have given them more ammunition for making powerful rap music than perhaps any other hip-hop artist in recent history.

It stood to reason, then, that FENIAN was always going to be a great album. The record comes less than two years after the release of Fine Art, during which time the trio received global attention for their unwavering stance on Palestine, and Mo Chara was forced to stand trial in the UK on trumped-up terrorism charges.

The second album’s quick turnaround is an example of artists knowing to strike while the iron is hot. For FENIAN, KNEECAP recruited producer Dan Carey, who helped make excellent post-punk music for the likes of Black Midi. The result is an album that is sonically and thematically very similar to Fine Art, but with wider scope and more bite.

Intro ‘Éire go Deo’ blissfully sets the scene, before ‘Smugglers & Scholars’ gets down to real business. Released as a single, the song catches listeners up on KNEECAP's recent UK legal victories (“I’ll never learn my lesson / Always be the government’s obsession”), using it to reaffirm Ireland’s history as a country built on rebellion.

Dealing with the Coachella fallout, ‘Carnival’ brilliantly balances wicked humour with razorsharp political commentary. Featuring a verse in Arabic from Fawzi, ‘Palestine’ is another highlight, while ‘Liars Tale’ boasts more memorably barbed lyrics: “Fuck Keir Starmer / Netanyahu’s bitch and genocide armer”.

Other standouts include the title track, which jokes about Irish stereotypes over a delicious groove, and ‘Gael Phonics’, which takes the form of an Irish language tutorial and includes the best lyrics of all (“Fuck the Duo Lingo bird, he be talking some shit / Stick this on repeat and you’ll be fluent, getting lit”). Rounding out the album is ‘Irish Goodbye’, a touching ode to Moglai Bap’s deceased mother, featuring Kae Tempest.

Quite simply, FENIAN is a triumph.

8/10