Fontaines D.C: Romance

Romance is Fontaines D.C. going full Radiohead while somehow making it feel completely their own, which should be impossible, but here we are.

I'll say it upfront – this is not your traditional Dogrel Fontaines. If you came here expecting more sneering Dublin street poetry, you might as well pack it up now. Romance is the sound of a band that's discovered they can make their guitars shimmer like oil slicks and decided to lean hard into that discovery. It's their "what if we tried being pretty?" album, and honestly? They pull it off better than they have any right to.

(Album Cover)

Starburster kicks things off with what can only be described as hip-hop drums wearing a Joy Division costume to a house party. Frontman Grian Chatten's vocals have evolved from bark to something closer to a controlled warble, still distinctly Irish, but now capable of actual tenderness. It's the kind of song that makes you realise the band has been holding back their pop instincts for years, and suddenly releasing them feels like watching someone finally exhale after holding their breath for three albums.

But it's on In the Modern World where things get really interesting (and slightly absurd). The band basically wrote a Lana Del Rey song, complete with orchestral swells and faded Hollywood glamour aesthetics, and somehow made it work within their universe. Grian channels his inner sad pop star over production that wouldn't sound out of place on Born to Die, and the cognitive dissonance is chef's kiss levels of perfect.

Motorcycle Boy doubles down on the Smashing Pumpkins worship that's been lurking in their DNA since day one, while Sundowner ventures into full shoegaze territory. Conor Curley takes lead vocals for the first time, and his dreamy delivery over swirling guitars feels like discovering a secret room in a house you thought you knew completely.

Thematically, Romance operates as a philosophical treatise disguised as a rock album, with Grian Chatten positioning love not as an emotion but as a destination, a "place" to inhabit rather than merely experience. The opening track's central question, maybe romance is a place for me and you, sets up the entire record as an exploration of love's geography – its dark corners, its blissful peaks, and the dystopian territories where desire becomes obsession. 

Drawing from Japanese manga and Italian cinema, the band constructs a retrofuturistic world where romance exists as both refuge from chaos and the very source of that chaos, where "momentary blissness" becomes a drug worth chasing even when it leads to destruction. The album's conceptual brilliance lies in its subversion of romantic idealism; these aren't traditional love songs but rather examinations of love's psychological architecture. 

The album does occasionally gets lost in its own ambitions, Horseness Is the Whatness (yes, that's a real song title) meanders when it should soar, and the middle section can feel a bit samey despite the stylistic variety. But when it works, Romance works wonders. Favourite closes things out with the kind of guitar jangle that makes you want to drive through a tunnel with the windows down, which is basically the highest compliment you can give an indie rock song.

This isn't their best album (that's still Skinty Fia), but it might be their most surprising. Turns out Fontaines D.C. in full cinematic mode is pretty unstoppable.

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By Anish Paranjape

The Entertainment Department