“My childhood was small / But I’m gonna be big,” prophesied one of Fontaines D.C.’s earliest singles, when it was impossible to know how true it would be, and how quickly it would come to pass. Approaching their fifth album in seven years, it’s still a bit staggering, even within the midst of it. Right now, the top brass of British and Irish indie-rock and post-punk are shaped in Fontaines D.C.’s image, if not directly, then through the opened floodgates of harder, more examinative fare given airtime. As for Fontaines themselves, their leap from strength to strength needs no recap. By this time next year, they’ll have played stadiums and enormous outdoor shows in promotion of this new album, if you really need some context.
All of that raises the question, is there much bigger for them to actually go? And if so, can they do it without compromise? Romance already prickled some apprehension of that in 2024 (undeservedly; it’s their best album), and once that gets going, it can be difficult for a band in Fontaines’ position to escape. In the 2020s, they are what Arctic Monkeys were to the 2000s and Imagine Dragons to the 2010s—de facto representatives of blanket ‘rock music’, to which everything around them and beneath them bends to their whim. But while both of those bands remain omnipresent, it’s almost entirely via inertia keeping their fizzled-out spark going. Fontaines D.C. aren’t there yet, but some rumblings would suggest that people are already preparing for it.
Fortunately, Dopamine Chamber dissuades those misgivings…to a point. This isn’t some clean ‘sellout’, though it’s not impossible to see that being attributed when the biggest bone of contention has already been how prominent the use of electronics is. Marianne already faced the brunt of it as a lead single, washed with gauzy, blurry synths and an overtly ‘cinematic’ bent. It’s demonstrably not the post-punk of Fontaines’ earlier work, nor does it want to be. This is their stadium gateway, for which they’ve prepared as accordingly as they can get away with.
Again, that’s not the same thing as ‘selling out’, even if Dopamine Chamber doesn’t have the cleanest adjustment to its newness. This isn’t a high-octane album at the best of times, and with how drilled into the bedrock that Fontaines D.C.’s foundations are, the (unintended) disharmony can ring out. Tongue is a great example; the hollowed, heavied mix and piano interlude shine, but the chirping Animal Crossing voice that tailgates Grian Chatten’s falls stone-dead. More pressingly, Japan and Intimate are such a disappointing pair to end things on, where form and steadiness is all but flushed out and the album limps to the finish engulfed in blank haze.
In aggregate, moments like these turn Dopamine Chamber into Fontaines D.C.’s most imprecise album, a word that fits better than ‘disappointing’ or even ‘unfocused’. That’s because, as is the case with the entire catalogue, there is focus here. The spirit of Fontaines D.C. is all over Dopamine Chamber, and rather blatantly, at that. The ‘dopamine chamber’ as a concept—a skewering of empty, instant gratification—is the perfect casing for themes that have been fundamental all across the band’s work: alienation; disillusionment, displacement. New impulses from especially Depeche Mode and New Order hardly seem coincidental, then.
Reconcile with that and the best parts of Dopamine Chamber fall out thick and fast. Six Shot Morning and Mimesis are early faves, both soaked in gleaming synth-fuzz and making the most of a gated, grainy percussion effect from Tom Coll. Dipping into the big rock side of the Fontaines ouevre, Happy For You is all build for maximum payoff, while Demolition splays out everywhere, with sweeping, open guitars and crunching synths before its starburst of a chorus. When Dopamine Chamber hits its stride, it justifies its existence to no end. It’s where Fontaines D.C. most feel like an important band, carried over from past forms with inspiration redirected, not lost.
Where Is Gone? perhaps typifies that the most, and might be the newest all-timer in Fontaines D.C.’s catalogue. Having ROSALÍA as their first named collaborator is already an inspired move; she’s unique and eclectic enough to nix any ‘pop team-up’ pejoratives that could circulate if it were someone else. It’s a little ironic when the song is one of the most straightforward on the album, but the feel is uncharted for Fontaines. Baleful alt-country embossed with tastefully restrained strings is great for a one-off stunner, in no small part because Chatten’s immovable voice sinks in so beautifully, even before commingling with the obviously-more-refined ROSALÍA. Coming directly after One Man, too—in essence, its more panicked and desperate mirror—crystallises it even further. It might be the last song before the customary petering-out of a Fontaines album, but it’s a hell of a high point.
More to the point, it (alongside plenty of its neighbours) point towards the band being anything but a spent force. Dopamine Chamber reads like a plot being forwarded and characters growing within it. That alone is a good sign, free of the wheel-spinning that would make the absurd trajectory of Fontaines D.C. feel unearned. They’re still going, forwards and upwards, clawing at that ‘biggest band in the world’ label until it’s theirs to take. It’s a rarity among the stadium set, the willingness to try more, adapt from there, and feel impactful through more than just necessity. Dopamine Chamber is not the best Fontaines D.C. album, but it’ll be a crucial one, and that’s the more important distinction.
For fans of: New Order, Radiohead, The Cure
‘Dopamine Chamber’ by Fontaines D.C. is out now on XL Recordings.
Words by Luke Nuttall
