Album Review: Romance by Fontaines D.C.

The Dublin outfit’s fourth album is experimental, softens their sound without diluting it, and is absolutely brilliant For a band as universally beloved as Fontaines DC, any kind of artistic experimentation is risky, especially if it’s seen as a softening or dilution of their sound (see: Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, Tangk). So it’s no small relief that Romance, the band’s fourth album, is experimental, softens their sound without diluting it, and is absolutely brilliant. The album’s closest sonic relative is frontman Grian Chatten‘s splendid solo debut Chaos For The Fly rather than any of their previous studio albums, and his confidence as a songwriter shows throughout both albums – he’s becoming increasingly unafraid to let his emotions talk, and barely relies on the kind of wistful metaphorical armour he’s worn at points on previous Fontaines albums.

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With a snowballing media profile, Fontaines D.C. capitalise on inevitable 'Song of 2024' Starburster's critical success, the lead single and amuse-bouche of Romance, an album of impeccably considered concepts championed by songwriting that refuses to let the Dublin outfit down. Musical allusions are fired indiscriminately into the crowd, though the album never errs remotely on pastiche: pinpointing Nirvana amidst Fontaines' lean-in to grunge entirely, while The Cure, Placebo, The Smiths all exist in the liminal space at the fringes of the album's downtempo captures; even Lana Del Rey on In the Modern World, call-and-response with amorous background vocals included.

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From those plastered across them after the sonic rapture of their 2019 post-punk staple debut Dogrel to live, backing away from their rabble-rousing entries, it should come as no surprise that the band in their return for album four - Romance - are sporting 90s-drenched street glam and toting a multitude of sounds that defy even these aesthetic expectations. While initial offering "Starburster" builds upon 2022's Skinty Fia titular metallic cut with its heavy, panic-attack-emulating industrial ferocity, each track of Romance presents as a different - and more importantly - a new facet of the Dublin quintet. Contorting any expectations levied upon them with a more grandiose ambition, one befitting a band continually dominating arenas and fields, Fontaines once again dream big and make it a reality.

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Fontaines D.C. are one of those rare bands able to ignore the noise of early hype and critical acclaim and successfully exceed expectations each time. Romance, the fourth album by this Dublin-made, now London-based five piece is no different. Using the complex character of the exceptionally fresh and sonorous Skinty Fia (2022) as a jumping off point, the musical compass of Romance points in many directions over the course of the album's 11 tracks.

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"Life ain't always empty." When I reviewed Skinty Fia, in the hazy rearview distance of 2022, my biggest takeaway was that the third album in four years by the constantly evolving Fontaines D.C. was one of minor masterpieces cut through with lesser songs. Time has sharpened this take, to the point where I consider it half a record of all-time classics ("I Love You", "Roman Holiday" and "Jackie Down the Line" chief among them) diluted by some conspicuous filler, a grim doom-laden atmosphere and absolutely plodding tempo.

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The Dublin-made, London-based quintet have excavated every crevice of post-punk over their short but disarmingly productive career. They barked, bit and howled their way through their debut Dogrel, professing their ambition through beat poetry and traditional '80s post-punk. Their sophomore, A Hero's Death, garnered them their first Grammy nomination by way of Brian Jonestown Massacre-style psychedelia, and their masterwork Skinty Fia's alarmingly aphotic tones reflected a disaffected band, alienated from their home country, scrappily piecing together what could be the definitive sound of modern-day post-punk.

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*black mirror writer voice* wot if we gave leopold bloom an iPhone Fontaines D.C. return with Romance, which is vindication for me personally, as Romance is what I've long believed every Fontaines song ever has been about. The Lotts tipped me off. That's on Dogrel, which came out in 2019, apparently; it feels like it was at least a decade ago.

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Fontaines D.C. have come a long way in a relatively short time. On their first album, Dogrel (2019), they could have been mistaken for another Art Brut, with simple observations like “My childhood was small / But I’m gonna be big.” With such a declaration of intent, the Dublin band couldn’t have planned their trajectory any better.

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One imagines there's a fidgetiness at Fontaines DC's core; that the very same second they're put in a box, a pathological need to contradict both themselves and the putter-inner immediately ensues - an irl case of 'whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not', if you will. Come out the gates with a fast-rising debut album packed with festival-ready bangers? Follow it by eschewing any semblance of immediacy, obviously. Now, having been lumped in with an ever-growing bandwagon of miserable men in dark colours channelling worldly frustrations into post-punk flavoured song, the obvious move is to turn hypercolour.

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Watching Fontaines D.C. tour their third album 'Skinty Fia' was a rare experience. Finally shedding their post-punk skin, the band seemed to evolve in real-time, changing radically from show to show. Catching them supporting Sam Fender for a mammoth set in North London's Finsbury Park, it was clear that they were becoming something new, and palpably exciting.

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Until now, being a fan of Fontaines D.C. was pretty easy. The exhilarating way in which they burst to life with 2019's Dogrel helped galvanize a renewed broader cultural interest in post-punk, exacting as it was in its marriage of youthful observation and acrimony alike. Their turn to the significantly moodier A Hero's Death was timely in both fortunate and unfortunate ways, musical growth as a mile marker for the darkness that was 2020.

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