Album Review: Fontaines D.C., Romance

Man, this band. Dogrel, Fontaines D.C.'s debut album, garnered a Mercury Prize nomination; their sophomore A Hero’s Death was nominated for a Grammy; and 2022’s Skinty Fia claimed the number 1 spot in Ireland and the UK. That’s to say nothing of the critical acclaim, countless rabid fans, and a mass of ordinary citizens who have the band’s name on their lips. Hype is at peak, expectation is immense; so, how does their fourth long player, Romance, sound?

How long you got? Look, it’s complex. Outlier, second single and album closer ‘Favourite’ is a Trojan feint, with a bleak lyric, magnificently cloaked in a summery melody. Single ‘Starburster’ is full of promise lyrically, but sounds as ominous as Deftones, and – tacked to the Kubrick-horror-flick-themed opener – amplifies the foreboding.

Frightfully, it’s punctuated by brutal gulps of breath, inspired by a panic attack lead singer Grian Chatten suffered in London’s St. Pancras. The thing is, it also masquerades as a belter of a dance track in a Depeche Mode-style sleight of hand.

Rather magnificently, at times listening to Romance, you could be twisting the dial on an ‘80s/’90s bedside radio. The scuzzy riff of ‘Here’s The Thing’ is reminiscent of Placebo; ‘Desire’ is redolent of Mazzy Star; and ‘Bug’ recalls the Cosmic Scouse of Shack. ‘In The Modern World’, meanwhile, smacks of mature Blur.

The record opens with Chatten inviting the listener “into the darkness again”. But the question is begged early, “Do I stay in the comfortable cold shower of reality or surrender to a fantastical dupe?” By album’s end and the sparkling ‘Favourite’, you sign up hook, line and sinker to the latter style of thinking. The brilliant three-part harmony is extraordinarily original and makes you accept its sinister sense of bliss, a post-modern version of The Jam’s ‘That Entertainment’.

Pointedly, Gilla Band’s influence on Fontaines remains undimmed. Jimmy Joyce is here too, turning up on the Carlos O’Connell-penned ‘Horseness Is The Whatness’. But in truth, we’re an Irish Sea from ‘Boys In The Better Land’. Sure, the majestically addictive ‘Death Kink’ could have been a Dogrel cut, but it’s the exception.

For this is an album that befits another city, perhaps a dreamlike Tokyo, which had a seismic influence on the band when they gigged there. So too, did Katushiro Otomo’s Akira and the fascination with falling in love at the end of the world. Only seven years on from the release of their debut single ‘Liberty Belle’, it’s been quite the ride.

9/10