Album Review: Fontaines D.C.’s Romance
Vibrant, eclectic and transportive, Fontaines D.C.’s fourth studio album Romance is a feat not only of music, but of worldbuilding. The record transcends their Irish rock past with a futuristic, cyber-punk sound, an aesthetic that takes it from a musical LP to an entire creative landscape – complete with artwork, cinematography and a wacky makeover to match.
‘Neon and ridiculous’ is how frontman Grian Chatten describes their new feel, and it’s true, you can’t miss them these days; guitarist Carlos O’Connell proudly sports a fluorescent pink and green hairdo, unrecognisable from the run-of-the-mill indie boys of first album Dogrel (2019). And this was exactly their intention. They’ve changed record labels (XL Recordings in place of Partisan), producers (picking up industry legend James Ford) and crafted a whole new look. In an interview with NME, Chatten talks about wanting to ‘render the audience sensitive’ to the band’s vision, an artistic instruction that requires engagement on all sensory levels. This meant taking inspiration from a plethora of abstract sources; The Cure, Japanese Manga classic Akira, the pearly-gates-macabre of America’s West Coast, James Joyce’s Ulysses, and ‘pigeons taking flight at dawn’, are just a few of the influences Chatten has accredited in interview. It’s ‘like playing a character’, he explains, looking to The Cure’s Robert Smith as an example of how eccentricity and weirdness elevates music beyond the studio. I agree, there’s something Bowie-esque in the way the band transforms onstage, leaving the smoke filled, industrial arenas of the UK for the technicolour, comic-strip playground of the album.
Romance’s first and titular track is moody and theatrical, repeating the line ‘maybe romance is a place’, an invitation into the album’s dystopian soundscape. We’re then taken on a journey, meandering between fast paced rocky tunes like ‘Bug’ and ‘Here’s The Thing’ to the more lowkey and intimate sound of shoegaze-y ‘Sundowner’ or ‘Motorcycle Boy’. Thematically, the album is dichotomous: bold and nihilistic with the emotional vulnerability of its rose-tinted title. The two most popular songs off the record, ‘Starburster’ and ‘Favourite’, released as singles during the spring of 2024 and generating buzz for the album drop, epitomise this duality. Where ‘Starburster’ is dramatic and moody, a verbal rampage over a thrilling bassline, ‘Favourite’ is achingly genuine, the brightest tune on the album, if not that I’ve ever heard. With a hint of The Cure again in its guitar riff straight out of ‘Just like Heaven’, the album’s final track is gorgeous, brimming with sunshine, generosity and summer evenings.
For Chatten however, his biggest pride is undoubtedly in ‘In the Modern World’, conceding that ‘I always wanted to write that song but never knew how… a song that sounded like Lana Del Rey could maybe sing on it, you know?’. Whilst not my ‘Favourite’ (Ha-Ha) off the album, the song is an artistic masterpiece – hazy, existential, and full of that apocalyptic delusion that permeates the record.
Grian Chatten is teeming with poetry. He expresses himself – both in song and in interview – with a delicacy that demands attention for the matter-at hand. For Fontaines, this poeticism is combined with simple, abrasive lyrics (‘Shit shit shit’ goes the chorus of ‘Death Kink’) to give the band their appeal: saying really clever things, in a really cool way. The textured, cascading lyricism throughout Romance reminds me of fellow musician-cum-poet Adrienne Lenker (of Big Thief); a resemblance that makes his goal of publishing a poetry book tangible and exciting, rather than another glory quest by a celebrity that should have stuck to their day-job. In interview, Chatten is dry and sarcastic, joking about his own brilliance in a mockery of the rock-n-roll frontman. There is a comic irony to this, as he is often the lone member interviewed, with O’Connell, Curley, Deegan and Coll taking a more low-key role in the band’s PR. However, as he lapses back into a monologue about the desire to maintain creatively esoteric, and ‘humbly’ admits that writing is like stretching the legs, I do find myself enchanted by him. It might just be the fangirl in me, but I find there is a real poignancy to Grian Chatten’s voice, a truthful self-awareness, that albeit pretentious at times (but what rockstar isn’t?), could make him the voice of a generation.
Despite their willingness to trade in popularity for creativity on Romance, Fontaines D.C. have never seen more success, doubling the first-week sales of their third album Skinty Fia (2022) and debuting at #2 on the UK Charts. The band are currently on an almost sold-out global tour, complete with Finsbury Park, a Primavera headline, and most notably, a night at Leeds’s First Direct (3rd December, if you’re interested.)
Words by Madeleine Royle-Toone
