Fontaines D.C. have released their fifth album, «Dopamine Chamber,» a doom-laden exploration of digital escapism and societal decay that arrives October 16 via XL Recordings. The Dublin band, already hailed as the biggest Irish act since U2, have abandoned the scrappy guitar punk of their debut «Dogrel» for a harsh, synthetic soundscape that frontman Grian Chatten describes as a «catastrophic warning.»
The album emerged from Chatten's travels to Venice, Vienna, and Sicily, where he sought escape from the claustrophobia of the modern world. What he found instead was a muse steeped in «faded grandeur» and a growing sense of dread. That unease permeates the record, from the mechanical Depeche Mode-style death march of opener «Six Shot Morning» to the trip-hop gloom of «Tongue,» which builds into a swampy Bad Seeds-esque breakdown before erupting into a full cyber-punk assault.
«Dopamine Chamber» functions as a mirror to the dopamine hits we receive from our devices, moving from one intense, mind-altering state to another. The band deliberately swung the pendulum from the more human elements of their sound toward harsher, synthetic extremes to bathe in the corruption the album explores. The result is an opulent, textured musical tapestry that serves as a backdrop for some of Chatten's most absorbing poetry to date.
Standout tracks include the cyborg-meets-symphony balladry of «Marianne,» which swoons into a cinematic feeling to «help you disappear,» and the '80s synth-pop noir of «Mimesis,» where obsession and unrequited love meet indifference in an age where, as Chatten puts it, «everybody's depressed, we're running on a wheel.» The album's title track, «One Man,» captures its core mission with the lyric: «dopamine chamber, just trying to kill the pain, you can't escape the feeling once you've given it a name.»
The record does err back toward the human side on occasion. «You Miss Me» draws from the Robert Smith playbook, pairing a shadowy spiderweb verse with a flower-in-bloom chorus, while «Japan» is a bittersweet acoustic singalong that floats above the ground. The breathy, elegiac «One Man» gives the album its title and its emotional center.
Listeners expecting a pop banger from the Rosalía collaboration «Where Is Gone?» will be surprised. Instead, it's a lovelorn Morricone-meets-Bond-theme ballad that peacefully realizes sometimes «there's no harm in saying leave it, let it die.» Even «Romance» had the daydream euphoria of «Favourite,» but there is no real light on «Dopamine Chamber» despite its Trojan Horse hooks. The album is all the richer for not having a Radio X banger shoehorned in—proof that you can fill a stadium without producing a «Sex On Fire.»
The gothy tones of The Cure linger throughout, and «Dopamine Chamber» would sit comfortably alongside the melancholy moodpieces of «Disintegration» and «Pornography,» as well as the future-proof genre-clash and dislocation of Massive Attack's «Mezzanine.» Fontaines D.C. have secured themselves as the definitive band of this decade with an extraordinary record for extraordinary times.
Amidst all the hiss and the decay, Fontaines have made something pure, honest, and feeling while in exhilarating motion. As Chatten once said of creative understanding, «Every now and again you have to fucking shake them off, just to see who you are again.» On «Dopamine Chamber,» the band has done exactly that—and emerged with their most ambitious work yet.