Marking Time

It may not be instantly appealing but Cathal Coughlan’s Foburg is a grower that rewards repeated listening and concentration. The vocabulary of rock music has become so limited that when faced with something as wordy as this it’s almost like an overload to the senses. An accompanying set of CliffsNotes wouldn’t go astray. This is rock music for adults that doesn’t assume that they’re all wallowing in their second childhood.

There’s loads going on here lyrically, and the music ably supports it. Foburg is a sort of concept album, the recorded version of Flannery’s Mounted Head, a live performance piece which Coughlan was commissioned to write for the Cork City Of Culture 2005 event. It’s theatrical in nature - some of the songs remind me of the musical numbers in the Simpsons - and all the songs slot together to form a coherent whole, telling a complicated story that I’m not even going to begin to attempt to summarise.

I found much of the Fatima Mansions output to be childish and irritating. It was frustrating for me because among the nonsense and the piss-taking (fun as it was) there were moments of maturity that showed that Coughlan had much more to offer. With his solo career he’s finally getting there. Foburg is proof that the medium of rock music still has the potential to produce something approximating art.