Fenian, the new album from Irish band Kneecap, will be released on vinyl, CD, and cassette on 24th April. In an Instagram post on 28th January, the band explained that the album’s title is a reappropriation of a word that has become an anti-Irish pejorative: “Now we’re using it to name everyone speaking truth to power.” The first single from the album, Liar’s Tale, features a blistering putdown of the UK Prime Minister: “fuck Keir Starmer... Better off as compost for farmers”.
A terrorism charge against Kneecap member Mo Chara was dropped last year, due to a legal technicality. Carnival, a track on the new album, is performed as a mock trial, with Mo Chara pleading innocent and fellow band member Móglaí Bap as his defence witness. (The song was presumably inspired by NWA’s Fuck tha Police.)
The charge related to a Kneecap concert in London on 21st November 2024, at the O2 Forum Kentish Town during the band’s final show on their Fine Art Tour, when Chara appeared on stage draped in the Hezbollah flag saying: “Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!” Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist group under UK law, and the Metropolitan Police charged Chara with displaying the flag “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation”.
Police also investigated Kneecap’s performance at last year’s Glastonbury Festival, after Bap called for fans to “start a riot” outside court when Chara’s trial began. After realising that his comments could be construed as an incitement to violence, Bap explained that he wasn’t literally asking people to riot, and Avon and Somerset Police dropped their investigation into the incident.
A terrorism charge against Kneecap member Mo Chara was dropped last year, due to a legal technicality. Carnival, a track on the new album, is performed as a mock trial, with Mo Chara pleading innocent and fellow band member Móglaí Bap as his defence witness. (The song was presumably inspired by NWA’s Fuck tha Police.)
The charge related to a Kneecap concert in London on 21st November 2024, at the O2 Forum Kentish Town during the band’s final show on their Fine Art Tour, when Chara appeared on stage draped in the Hezbollah flag saying: “Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!” Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist group under UK law, and the Metropolitan Police charged Chara with displaying the flag “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation”.
Police also investigated Kneecap’s performance at last year’s Glastonbury Festival, after Bap called for fans to “start a riot” outside court when Chara’s trial began. After realising that his comments could be construed as an incitement to violence, Bap explained that he wasn’t literally asking people to riot, and Avon and Somerset Police dropped their investigation into the incident.