If the crying heart artwork adorning Fontaines D.C.'s fourth album wasn't a clear enough indication that Romance was never going to be a record of sweet, pure and unabashed love songs, then the opening minute of its title track serves as a brutal, chilling wake-up. Opening with a creepy descending mellotron riff, crashing stabs of distorted synths, and sinister bone-rattle percussion, it finds vocalist Grian Chatten quietly crooning "Into the darkness again" before proceeding to get darker still. "Deep in the night I confide, that maybe my goodness has died" its second verse lyric runs, adding "I pray for your kindness, your heart on a spit."
Love you too babe.
It's no wonder that conventional ideas about love and romance are blurred, twisted and contorted here, for this is also an album about transformation, and growth, and about negotiating challenges as once-safe-and-secure ground shifts constantly beneath one's feet. The Dublin quintet have always been a creatively restless band, but where their superb debut album Dogrel was imbued with the spirit of Shane MacGowan and early '80s post-punk, their first album for XL Recordings (also home to trail-blazing artists such as Burial, Radiohead, M.I.A., and Casisdead) is a startling bold reinvention, drawing inspiration from dark-wave electronica, experimental hip-hop, '90s alt. rock, and - who saw this coming five years ago? - the menace and melancholia of Korn and Deftones, two bands that guitarist Carlos O’Connell has fallen back in love with in recent years.
The influence of those nu-metal daddies is perhaps most detectable in two of the three singles already released to preview Romance: the panic attack-inspired Starburster and the driving Here's The Thing, with it's David Silveria-esque cymbal-work, biting riff, and lyrics such as "To be anaesthetised and crave emotion, So beautiful to hurt so well." Then there's Death Kink, a reflection on a toxic relationship, with distinct echoes of Jonathan Davis in lyrics such as "You recognised the smell - human pain - said I’d learn to love the chain."
But, if influences from across the Atlantic have seeped into their blood, and the band are now resident in London, Fontaines haven't abandoned their Dublin City roots. Their good friends Kneecap recently celebrated an emerging generation of Irish artists making "authentic, original" music - “None of this U2 kind of shit, making music for America: sad men singing in American accents" - and Grian Chatten's vocals could be from nowhere else. Atmospheric ballad Horseness Is the Whatness takes its name from James Joyce's Ulysses, while beautiful closing track Favourite evokes images of Dublin in the rain, albeit that Chatten told The Guardian that its main subject is "booze and drugs, and depression." And the reference in Starbursters to "a bottle or bag" suggests that, while the band may be exploring new territories in life, love and locations, seeking chemical escape isn't something left behind across the Irish Sea.
2024 has been an incredible year for Irish music, with Kneecap, Sprints and New Dad having already delivered stunning debuts, and the likes of Meryl Streek and Gurriers waiting in the wings. But, right now, this is Fontaines D.C.'s moment.
On Big, the opening track on Dogrel, Grian Chatten sang, "My childhood was small, but I'm gonna be big", a line imbued with a degree of sarcasm and cynicism, trading on the idea that in a capitalist society, only lives fuelled by naked ambition and dreams of success have merit, that only aspiration and attainment deserve praise. Fontaines D.C.'s ascent has been conducted on their own terms, but with Romance, they stand ready to take on the world, come whatever may.
