Fin de Siècle

Fin de Siècle is French for end of the century. Hannon wrote it after listening to a Jacques Brel album that he thought had ten perfect tracks, and set out to make such a collection. It was recorded at September Sound, Olympic Studios and The Dairy, with Jon Jacobs as main producer and Hannon as co-producer, and Joby Talbot arranged and conducted. Time Out called it a concept album that picks at the scabs of twentieth century existence. Hannon said the album was other people's angst, and the end of the century a good excuse to look around. National Express, Thrillseeker and Here Comes the Flood evoke Broadway musicals with a choir, and the closer Sunrise was written around the time of the Good Friday Agreement.

The album reached nine in the UK and the Divine Comedy headlined the New Stage at Glastonbury in 1998. Its singles were Generation Sex (14 September 1998, number 19), The Certainty of Chance (9 November 1998, number 49) and National Express (25 January 1999, number 8). Stephen Graham, writing in We Are Cult, called it Hannon's most mature and rounded work to date. Kevin Harley of Record Collector thought it tipped the jokes and arrangements towards overload, though a tempering beauty emerged. The Critic's Alexander Larman called it lavishly orchestrated and doomily millennial.