Fontaines D.C.: Dopamine Chamber (LP)

Ilmestyy 16.10.

Fontaines D.C. today announce their fifth studio album, Dopamine Chamber, released on 16th October via XL Recordings. Produced by James Ford, it is the follow-up to 2024’s UK platinum-certified Romance – and the sound of a band moving decisively away from the guitar language of their early records into something colder, stranger and more synthetic. It arrives today alongside lead single ”Marianne” and its accompanying video, directed by Dave Meyers.

An opulent, rousing introduction to the record, ”Marianne” unfurls like red velvet curtains in a crumbling Italian theatre, conjuring high ceilings and expensive decay. Inspired in part by the 2024 thriller series Ripley, it’s a song about escapism and hedonism and it works as a siren call, offering the listener a getaway from – or towards – oblivion. ”This year, you should come and stay here / You can follow my lead / I can help you disappear,” Grian Chatten sings, as the arrangement glistens around him. Underneath the seduction is a harder question: how willingly might a person surrender their imagination, when the alternative is to remain fully conscious of catastrophe?