Romance amid approaching armageddon. Life in a snowglobe, a pastoral scene made ever-precarious,teetering on chaos created by the flick of the wrist. Love as an antique, that generations after us will only understand from history books. Fontaines D.C.’s fourth album ROMANCE interrogates amorphous conceptsof love and relationships, alienation and identity, fantasy and reality – all building to a central statement thatChatten sings of hauntingly, invitingly, on the opening track: “Maybe romance is a place”.
11 tracks constellate ideas that have been percolating among Grian Chatten (vocals), Carlos O’Connell(guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan (bass), and Tom Coll (drums) since 2022’s No.1 record SkintyFia and US tour with Arctic Monkeys. The record builds upon sonic sensibilities the band started to experimentwith on Skinty Fia, now reaching into grungier textures, hip-hop breaks and beats, shoegazey tones andcontemporary electronic sounds. It is as indebted to their times listening to Shygirl and Sega Bodega as it isto old Hollywood soundtracks, Outkast, The Prodigy and A$AP Ferg. The band introduces more assured production skills. ROMANCE’s bones were set in time spent apart, experimenting as individuals across Mexico,the Spanish countryside, and LA, and an intense production period together with producer James Ford (ArcticMonkeys, Blur) in a French chateau.
The album represents a provocative sonic and aesthetic era for the Dublin-made, now London-based band.A summer of international live shows and festivals will introduce fans to their rapidly unspooling universe andask them too: will you all-out surrender to the fantasy?