The band's fifth LP is a bruising and brilliant collection that will sound right at home in their biggest-ever venues next summer.
By
Fontaines D.C. Elizaveta Porodina
When Fontaines D.C. arrived as poetic, scrappy post-punks on their 2019 debut Dogrel, few would have had them pinned as their generation’s finest (and commercially successful) bands. Just seven years on, however, the Irish five-piece have transcended any limitations or naysayers who said a rock band could no longer move culture in the 21st century: Get a load of these lads.
Dopamine Chamber is the band’s fifth album, and arrives in an ongoing purple patch for the group. Barely a year after their debut album came A Hero’s Death (2020), a moodier offering than their loquacious debut, and in 2022, they returned with Skinty Fia, their poppiest – and finest – collection to date.
The band broke cover internationally with 2024’s Grammy-nominated Romance, but even then it was with an obtuse sound that channeled influences from grunge, nu-metal, and hip-hop. Sizzling tracks like “Starburster” and “Bug” travelled far and wide on platforms like TikTok, and brought them to their biggest audiences yet. The LP landed at No. 97 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified platinum in the U.K., their first album to clear that benchmark.
Where Romance searched for solace in a world that felt increasingly confounding, Dopamine Chamber succumbs to and embraces the darkness. “I don’t think every album needs balance,” Grian Chatten, the band’s singer and primary lyricist told The New York Times. “I feel it’s a bit cookie cutter to try and be like, ‘We need some light and shade, all the time, on the track.’”
The soundscape is suitably oblique with nods to Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure and Massive Attack, and its subject matter bleaker still: dissociation, dissonance and despair. The LP takes on an even more tragic feel following the passing of their manager Trevor Dietz, who championed them from their earliest days; he died in June, aged 47, after the completion of Dopamine Chamber. “Marianne,” the album’s pounding lead single, was selected by the band based on Dietz’s conviction and belief in the song prior to his death.
That overwhelming sense of dread hasn’t put off fans; the group sold out their European arena tour, due for kick off in Lisbon on Oct. 21, in a matter of minutes. Next year, they’ll headline a number of stadiums across the U.K., and in Ireland, they’ll take on the 80,000-capacity Slane Castle — becoming the first domestic artist to headline the space since U2 in 2001. The biggest names are now calling: Rosalía appears on “Where Is Gone?,” the LP’s stunning centerpiece.
Dopamine Chamber treads a fine line between introspection and darkness, with stadium-headlining ambition and does so superbly. This could be the start of their Imperial Phrase, to borrow a phrase from Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tenant.
Below, our Billboard UK staff ranks the 11 tracks from Dopamine Chamber from worst to best.
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“Intimate”
By the time of the record’s closing moment, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sonic intensity and the sharpness (and bleakness) of the record’s subject matter. “Intimate” comes as a fitting finale: not a neat summation, but more of a shellshocked whimper and acceptance that the world around us is unlikely to improve, so beauty must be found in pockets of everyday life. “What’s inside you gonna help me navigate this broken heart,” Chatten sighs, before admitting that “the ruins of the human dream” make for a “colourful ending,” and look “so pretty in the final scene.” – THOMAS SMITH
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“Marianne”
This hulking lead single — which became the band’s highest-charting single to date in the U.K. (No. 19) upon its arrival, prior to Fontaines’ Reading & Leeds Festival headline slot in August — showcases its grasp of dynamics, and of the need to build and release tension. As the atmosphere turns murkier and more discomfiting, synths splutter in and out of life; you could imagine it soundtracking a final girl’s last-ditch escape in a horror film. As ever, Chatten’s vocal is soft and lilting, though here he’s not afraid to push it through odd, squelching, eerie effects. – SOPHIE WILLIAMS
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“Tongue”
On “Tongue,” the second single issued from this LP, the band is lightyears away from their scrappy post-punk sound of Dogrel. Each song from that album was anchored by an instinctive and catchy guitar riff from the off, but on “Tongue” you barely notice one kick in until the final 20 seconds. Instead there’s a grooving bass line, skittish drum fills and a twinkling piano topline that shoots for the same sinister feel of Massive Attack’s Mezzanine. It is a sound that suits them, even if it feels less memorable than the rest of the material on this LP. Perhaps a sonic direction for LP 6 if they continue to develop and innovate at their current rate. – T.S.
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“One Man”
Self-realisation burns ferociously on the uncompromising “One Man,” which finds Chatten holding his notes like drones, flying outwards and enhancing the song’s strange, spellbinding mood. It’s topped off with disjointed acoustic guitar and spatters of ghostly electronics and drums, as Chatten sings of finding oneself, abandoning responsibilities, moving towards escapism and bathing in the feeling. “Forget about your worries/ I forget ‘em all the time,” he offers at one point. “If I failed you/ I’m not sorry.” – S.W.
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“Where Is Gone?” (with Rosalía)
Rosalía team-up “Where Is Gone?” (the band’s first-ever collaboration) ripples with dread, a combination of sonic dissonance and lyrics that contrast affection and intimacy with past hurt. It takes on the qualities of a future Bond theme as it rolls along: cinematic, muscular and faintly menacing, with quiet, simmering ferocity and sudden shifts between tension and calm, while Chatten and Rosalía trade vocals back and forth. At its centre is a purposefully ambiguous refrain – “Where is gone?/ And why don’t I know?” – which adds a note of vulnerability. – S.W.
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“Six Shot Morning”
The lads have a knack for opening tracks. Each of their previous LPs have kicked off with something resembling a mission statement. “Big,” a prophetic bone-rattler that set them on their path to stardom, was an appropriate kick-off on their debut album Dogrel. “In ár gCroíthe go deo” on Skinty Fia, sets the tone for a collection of songs that grapples with their Irish heritage.
“Six Shot Morning” treads the same path as the eponymous opener on Romance with distorted electronic murmurings bubbling away in the background; this time, however, the track explodes with a simple – but effective – new wave-esque synth line. All the while Chatten introduces the album’s big talking points, and battles to find some kind of meaning amidst the darkness and apathy: “Fist in the air but you don’t ask why,” he despairs of these head-spinning times. – T.S.
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“Japan”
Dopamine Chamber, as a whole, relishes in long builds and off-kilter song structures that embrace the discombobulating feel of the LP’s tonal subjects. “Japan” succeeds because it stands apart, and is the closest moment to a standard singer-songwriter pop moment from the band. The melodic progression is reminiscent of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?-era Noel Gallagher, though the narrative-driven lyrics end up telling a compelling short story of two indifferent, but intoxicating, protagonists in a messy situationship: “On the corner drops him weeping like a child/ He says thanks for the no promises. – T.S.
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“You Miss Me”
This gently lavish number has potential to be a Fontaines D.C. all-timer; generous and cinematic, the track’s candid lyrics – which unpacks a communication breakdown in a relationship – arrives blanketed in clouds of lush, reverberant vocal harmonies, with strings, guitar, synth and woodwind skittering and soaring throughout. It builds and builds from a lo-fi, needling loop of distortion into an epic finale, allowing for a gorgeously raspy bassline and even raspier vocals to shine front and centre. – S.W.
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“Happy for You”
Speaking in a recent interview, Chatten says that “Happy for You” has taken on new meaning following the passing of Dietz, the band’s long-time manager: “It’s about death now – and how to come to terms with it,” he told The London Times. While the opening lines speak to a romantic tiff (“We had a fight that had the neighbours around”), as the song progresses there’s an element of regret and longing for something that can never be recovered: “If you had a problem, I wish you’d just tell me/ Instead of running away.”
As the music builds from a looping guitar riff into My Bloody Valentine-sized riffs and distortion, a sense of begrudging acceptance emerges: “If you go, I won’t run after you I swear/ So you know, I’m just happy for you.” With Chatten’s new perspective, the song is an even heavier tome. – T.S.
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“Demolition”
“Demolition” realizes the mission that Romance started in incorporating Fontaines’ grunge-y, alt-metal influences. Where Romance cuts “Death Kink” and “Here’s the Thing” took big swings but didn’t quite connect, “Demolition” lands the blow. At its core is a stuttering guitar riff that hits harder each time it comes around, and evokes the same potency (and playfulness) as Deftones conjured on breakthrough album Around the Fur. Chatten’s crystalline vocals – some of his finest ever – camouflage lyrics of a toxic dependency: “My soul so sick with the need for yours.” – T.S.
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“Mimesis”
There’s a poppy heart within “Mimesis”, a bright, disarmingly catchy hook that sounds like one you’ve always known and cherished. Its radiant sound feels indicative of how, since the anthemic “Jackie Down the Line” stormed out of the gates at the start of the band’s 2022 Skinty Fia campaign, the Fontaines D.C. aesthetic has continued to embody some intriguing contradictions: balancing melodic immediacy with downplayed vocals and weighty, dark, atmospheric fuzz. Expect this one to go off at the band’s first-ever stadium dates next summer. – S.W.