When they burst onto the scene in 2019 with their debut album “Dogrel”, Irish band Fontaines D.C. were a music journalist and festival booker’s dream. They had it all: youthful restless energy, punk sensibilities, charismatic frontman who quickly found himself lauded as the voice of his generation, headliner potential. Most importantly, they had great songs. “Dogrel” was a classic coming-of-age tale of working-class youth trapped in a small town with an acute sense that bigger, more desirable things are happening elsewhere. It resonated powerfully with critics and fans alike.
Many forerunners with such promising debuts have sunk under their weight. Not so Fontaines D.C.: always possessed of a formidable work ethic, they quickly followed their debut with a further two critically acclaimed and commercially successful albums – “A Hero’s Death” (2020) and “Skinty Fia” (2022) – with frontman Grian Chatten even finding time to release a solo album last year. With each outing, they broadened their perspective and creative vision like a camera lens gradually zooming out, documenting their journey from Ireland to London and beyond, scrappy upstarts to ascendant rock stars. While Ireland remains an emotional and creative touchstone – the D.C. in the band’s name stands for Dublin City and Chatten’s lyrics often reference Irish literature such as Yeats and Joyce – their musical influences have always been diverse and unexpected. By 2022’s lower key “Skinty Fia” they had travelled far away from their early post-punk sound.
Inevitably, fourth album “Romance” arrives as one of the most anticipated albums of 2024. We should all know enough by this point to expect the unexpected, before even glimpsing its dayglow-blue and pink artwork and the band’s dramatic new look, cyberpunk-meets-2000s alternative rock. The band describe “Romance” as their “most ambitious, inventive and sonically adventurous yet”. It is, taking you on such a musical journey so expansive, that it’s startling to realise after listening, that it’s only eleven tracks long. Stylistically, it goes everywhere from the dark, distorted drama of the title track to the addictive hip-hop tones of lead single “Starburster”, to the mournful, orchestral “Desire” to the jangly, deceptively upbeat second single “Favourite”. Fontaines D.C.’s influences here are wide-ranging, from nu-metal bands such as Korn to Blur, The Cure, PJ Harvey and perhaps most surprisingly of all, the cinematic world-building of Lana Del Rey. It all comes to make perfect sense, even though it sounds like it shouldn’t.
If this all sounds a bit gimmicky or pretentious, it isn’t. Partly, “Romance” works as an album, because of the well-considered thematic thread that connects its disparate parts. Romance and idealism are hardly new themes for the band, who took the other part of their name, “Fontaines”, from the character of Johnny Fontane in “The Godfather”. Here, though, romance takes on a broader scope as a philosophical enquiry, even a theoretical position. “Maybe romance is a place”, frontman and chief lyric writer Chatten ponders on the album’s striking opening track. Chatten describes being influenced by films such as the cyberpunk classic “Akira”, while conceptualising the album during a short, doomed spell living in L.A that “felt like death”.
To cope, Chatten found himself escaping into his imagination, conjuring the spirit of Del Rey as he walked the streets, thinking about “falling in love at the end of the world”. The question that sits at the heart of this project is, whether romanticism is a political act of longing for a better world or merely a sedative that deadens us to reality. It’s a prescient one for the times we live in. For guitarist Carlos O’Connell it’s “about deciding what is fantasy – the tangible world or the world you move in in your mind. Which represents reality more? That feels almost spiritual to us.” These ideas percolate on the stunning “In the Modern World”, the album’s soaring, string-laden touchstone track. It’s not difficult to imagine the song as the duet with Del Rey that Chatten says he would love to manifest. You can’t imagine the indie frontmen of yesteryear, such as Liam Gallagher, ever voicing a sentiment like this, but that’s the power Chatten holds.
Accordingly, the other thread that ties “Romance” together is Chatten’s signature vocal. He’s endearingly devoid of ego, telling interviewers that he couldn’t bear to listen to his voice on earlier Fontaines albums, but he’s grown more accepting of it lately. However, unlike themselves the music might sound, Chatten’s unmistakeable Dublin accent ensures everything sounds uniquely “them”. He gives authenticity to even the most opaque and lofty lyric here, singing like he’s wrestling the words from the depths of his soul and lending them an emotional heft that’s almost unbearable. You can really hear the yearning when he sings “And wait for the day to go dreaming” on “In the Modern World”. It’s not an overstatement either to say that the chaotic “Starburster” with its relentless, driving beat, underpinned by Chatten’s frequent, wild gasping for breath, might be the most startlingly memorable track you’ll hear this year. Inspired by a panic attack Chatten had at a London train station shortly before being diagnosed with ADHD, it’s a call to arms in a way, a rationale for romance as a way to transcend painful realities. While Fontaines’ music has expanded far beyond its punk roots, the sensibility remains. Perhaps in 2024, holding steadfast to a belief in romance, love and hope is the most punk you can be.
With “Romance”, Fontaines D.C. have cemented their position as the only ascending band with the credibility to headline Glastonbury in the near future. That they’ve done it with an album that points so resolutely towards the future, is really exciting. Fontaines D.C. wouldn’t have worked as a coherent band proposition in any previous decade, but in all their uncompromising, genre-blending, idealistic, poetic messiness, they belong to the 2020s. We’re just lucky to have them.
„Romance“ by Fontaines D.C. will be released August 23rd.