Fontaines D.C. – Dopamine Chamber – Album Review
by Killian Laher

Fontaines D.C. have gone on quite a journey from their early days.  I once caught them at Forbidden Fruit in 2018, in a midafternoon slot in a random tent.  Now they’re planning to play two nights in Slane!  A new Fontaines D.C. album is pretty much an event these days, akin to U2 back in the 1980s.  They have evolved from the punky sound of Dogrel to what now appears to be their electro album! Or is it? They are hard to pin down.

It certainly starts out that way with the keyboard-heavy opener Six Shot Morning.   They continue in this vein with the almost menacing Marianne and the breezy Depeche Mode-style electronica of Mimesis.

Happy For You opens up with a more stripped-down sound, but has a kind of addictive melody which builds to an intense conclusion.  Later we get the brooding, propulsive Tongue and the stately string ballad One Man, this album’s ‘In The Modern World’ in ‘feel’ if not tempo.  This one has a soaring, anthemic quality that will surely ring out across outdoor venues next summer.

Much of the album has catchy melodies, but moody ones.  The slow-burning Where Is Gone features a duet with Rosalia, while You Miss Me fills the chorus with uplifting strings.  Japan is something of a throwback, an acoustic strum that almost sounds like it belongs on a different album, before the vague, indistinct closer Intimate.

It doesn’t sound like what they’ve done before, but yet it still sounds like Fontaines D.C., if that makes any sense.  It’s their fifth good album out of five.  How long before they are really considered one of the great bands of our time?

Marianne