Following the 2019 release Irish quintet’s critically-claimed debut album, Dogrel, Fontaines D.C. has shown no sign of slowing down. Despite the group’s consistent touring presence since bursting onto the scene, they have found the time to record and release a continual stream of music for their ever-growing fanbase.
Romance, the Dublin-based band’s fourth studio album, puts the full musical range of the band on display, providing listeners with a experience varying from quasi-psychedelic tracks to more straightforward indie rock bangers. This range is, in no small part, thanks to the immense talent of their lead singer, Grian Chatten, whose unique and varied vocal delivery provides the band’s music with a tinge of timelesness.
The LP is brief, with its eleven tracks spanning just 37 minutes. On top of this, eagle-eyed fans will notice that four of the eleven tracks were released as singles during the album’s extensive rollout. Whilst this might raise alarm bells surrounding the consistency of the album for some listeners, those are put to rest swiftly by the record’s intro and titular track, Romance. Despite only being a two and a half minute intro track, the soft strings and percussion occasionally juxtaposed by walls of distortion is eery enough to leave the listener with an experience not dissimilar to that of a psychological thriller movie.
The record keeps a lively pace with its lead single, Starburster, which is a natural hit. From the thumping percussion that one can’t help but nod along to, to the relentless delivery of witty and literate one-liners from Chatten, this song is a clear highlight. Here’s The Thing follows up on this tone and quality with its ridiculously infectious hook and stellar verses. My only qualm with this song is that the guitars feel as if they are competing with the vocals for the spotlight on the chorus, with the guitars very much taking a backseat despite the excellent riff, taking some of the venom out of the track. Despite this, Fontaines once again prove their ability to create earworm indie-rock tracks.
Desire sees the album change to a more atmospheric and psychedelic tack, without any compromise to quality. The repetitive, chant-like vocals are dripped in reverb, creating a transportive listening experience. Following up on the success of Desire, Sundowner (on the second half of the tracklist) utilises a similar recipe, to decent effect. Unfortunately, Sundowner doesn’t have the same benefit of an adapting, transitive song structure which could threaten to lose the listener’s attention.
Nevertheless, Fontaines closes out the first half of the LP in a strong fashion with Bug and In The Modern World, the group’s latest single. The cute lyrics and tender strings on the single’s represent a departure in approach from the traditional indie-rock banger blueprint used on Bug and Here’s The Thing that works so well for Fontaines. Despite this, the track is excellent and only grows on the listener with every subsequent listener.
The unabating musical quality represented in the first half of the record is, unfortunately, not always present in the latter leg. As previously mentioned, Sundowner does feel a tad like a poor man’s Desire. Death Kink falls into a similar trap, feeling a little redundant when compared to some of the other heavy-duty rock tracks that proceed it that feature much more memorable performances all around, particularly in the vocals department. Neither of these songs are poor in their own right, they just struggle to stand out from amongst a star-studded tracklist. By contrast, the timid Horseness is the Whatness leaves much less impression upon the listener. Despite the sombre and introspective lyrics which see Chatten ruminating on the lessons he has learnt over the years, the listener is left feeling emotionally unphased (or perhaps my heart is simply as cold as ice, do let me know).
Even so, the second half of the record contains gems as well. Motorcycle Boy is a stellar track, with chopped-up vocal echoes providing the background to an instrumental that only gathers steam as it progresses. When combined with the repeated chants of ‘motorcycle boy’, the track can feel like its ascending into a frenzy at points. The outro and second single, Favourite, is doubtless one of the major highlights of an already excellent record. Here, Chatten’s unique knack for delivering instantly nostalgic vocal performances is used to great effect. The guitar riff simply adds the cherry on top, lending the outro a sense of timelessness that, if it had previously been in doubt, would set Fontaines apart from the saturated crowd of Western indie rock bands.
Whilst Romance is arguably a front-loaded album, the sheer number and variety of memorable tracks make the record yet another jewel in Fontaines’ expanding discography. This album represents a continuation of the quality that fans have now come to expect from the Irish quintet. As the band carves out their own path in mainstream music, I am certain that this record will continue to age gracefully.
This album is solid, 7/10.
Theo Aveline 