When I Have Fears

The debut album from Dublin post-punks the Murder Capital came from an acute place of personal anguish: the suicide of frontman James McGovern’s best friend. As such, 2019’s When I Have Fears makes for intense listening at times; McGovern working through his grief via emotionally raw songs that howled within a brutalist sonic architecture of pummelling drums and shards of guitar. Yet in its cathartic roar and broken vulnerability songs such as the thunderous “Don’t Cling To Life” and Nick Cave-like “How The Streets Adore Me Know” provide solace within the darkness.