On Fontaines D.C.’s panic-attack-inspired 2024 single “Starburster,” frontman Grian Chatten searches desperately for unfiltered certainty. “I wanna take the truth without a lens on it/My god-given insanity depends on it,” he sings, buried amid crunchy boom-bap beats and wheezing Mellotron. The song’s cryptic video—and its ominous parade of gimp masks, albuterol hits, and reconstructive surgery—only underscores the sense that the Irish group, once famous for its studied cool, might be going off the rails.
Where Fontaines D.C.’s 2022 album Skinty Fia bid a tenebrous farewell to the band’s Dublin origins, on Romance they embrace their transformation into globe-trotting rock stars. Having evolved from the pints, poetry, and working-class grit of their roots, they’ve traded longtime collaborator Dan Carey (Squid, Black Midi) for producer James Ford, known for his work with arena-scale bands like Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, and Depeche Mode; they’ve replaced the raw post-punk of Dogrel and A Hero’s Death with a Frankenstein assemblage of Britpop, gothic Americana, and ’90s alt rock. (They’ve updated their outfits, too, with new looks that suggest Harmony Korine styling the Spice Girls.) Are they having an identity crisis, or playing with their newfound fame? Excitingly, it’s a bit of both. Romance maintains the darkness integral to Fontaines D.C.’s music while showcasing a frisky unpredictability.
Romance opens with a feeling of limitless possibility framed against a backdrop of impending doom. The ominous title track feels like a death march: Its piano melody teeters between innocence and occult, accompanied by brooding fuzz guitar and percussion that sounds like it was recorded in a damp cave. “Maybe romance is a place,” Chatten sings seductively: “For me/And you.” What follows is similarly sprawling and surrealistic, combining the Cure’s haunting sweetness with the Pixies’ nightmarish edge. Opulent string arrangements conjure the ghosts of classic cinema, then give way to a darkly Western influence.
Chatten sounds more vibrant than ever, exuding the starry-eyed curiosity of a traveler exploring a new city. From his jittery breathing and soulful crooning on “Starburster” to the urgent falsetto and seductive sighs of “Here’s the Thing” to a weepy head voice on “Desire,” his newfound range is remarkable, and so is the band’s. On “In the Modern World,” they channel the dreamy tones of Lana Del Rey’s “Sad Girl” and the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Tonight, Tonight.” On “Death Kink,” Chatten’s voice shifts between narcotized and menacing as he unspools lyrics like a round of exquisite corpse: “I live meretricious/You shattered/Amazing stars from the drink.”
Yet for all the music’s supersized passion, Fontaines D.C. are in an emotional headlock on Romance. “To be anesthetized/And crave emotion,” Chatten pleads on “Here’s the Thing.” Numbness is seductive (“In the Modern World”) and sentimentality is a sickness that leads to fatal consequences (“Motorcycle Boy”). The journey culminates with the jangle-pop gem “Favourite,” which Chatten has described as sounding paradoxically like death to him. “I don’t mean that in a negative sense,” he clarified. “It sounds like surrendering to the flow.”
The tender “Horseness Is the Whatness”—which quotes one of their original heroes, James Joyce—is Romance’s breakthrough, and the most beautiful song in the band’s catalog to date. The ultrasound heartbeat of Carlos O’Connell’s daughter merges with lush strings into a sprawling slow burn. “Will someone/Find out what the word is/That makes the world go round?” pleads Chatten, singing lyrics written by O’Connell. “’Cause I thought it was love/But some say that it has to be choice.” A world away from the antic wordplay of “Starburster” or the inflamed bruise of “Here’s the Thing,” “Horseness Is the Whatness” embraces the quest for meaning amid the whirlwind of new life. Tom Coll’s percussion sounds like slow-motion explosions, while the fluttering strings add to the wistful, tense atmosphere. They haven’t thrown away all their initial inspirations, but—just like the garish green tracksuits and Y2K dye jobs—they have found exciting new ways to style them. The brilliance of Romance lies in its unsettling blend of antic energy with refined craft—in the depths of detachment, Fontaines D.C. strike an engaging pose.
