Fontaines D.C.’s ‘Dopamine Chamber’ is a Final Warning
Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C.’s apocalyptic brainchild, Romance, arrived over two years ago. Brimming with hungry love and a race to the edge of the earth hand-in-hand, the quintet’s last record leaned into ‘90s rock nostalgia while dipping its toes into new-era noise.
Alongside lead singer Grian Chatten stand guitarists Carlos O’Connell and Conor Curley, bassist Conor Deegan, also known as Deego, and drummer Tom Coll, who hail from Dublin, Ireland. After their 2019 debut record, Dogrel, received critical acclaim, the band went on to release three more albums and embark on several arena tours across the globe, with their last album, Romance, unveiling a far more ambitious side to their musicality.
Today, the group hands over Dopamine Chamber –– the final plunge into oblivion. A sadistic invitation to stand face-to-face with the product of instant dopamine stretches across 11 bone-chilling tracks, none offering warm consolation for the reflection that stares back. Guitars are traded for beautifying synthesisers, impending doom is masked with seductive, temporary fixes, and Chatten’s vocals settle into a deeply rich register that tints the record in dark hues. What ends up poking through is the group’s uneasy realization of a decaying world detaching from humanity. Rather than putting words in your mouth, a beckoning chamber is built for you to arrive at those answers on your own.
“Our albums have always questioned a sense of place,” Deego reflects about their discography. “First Dublin, then being away from Dublin, and then trying to find the romance elsewhere. On this record, the question became: where do you escape to?”
Cut to Chatten taking his first breath under an artificial sky in the electronic broodiness of “Six Shot Morning”; nothing is as it seems.“It’s you and I living for a million years,” he entices, and it’s convincing enough to make you dismiss the underlying warning and take his hand. Now held captive, “Marianne” is the unrelenting beast that swallows you deeper into its belly. Lurching drums surge toward the surface like clamping jaws as Chatten distracts his prey with a false promise of safety: “You should come and stay here / You can follow my lead / I can help you disappear.”
Unfolding in distinct sonic chapters, the record is a testament to Fontaines D.C.'s multifaceted evolution as artists. “Mimesis” closes out the band’s efforts to weave in gothic anthems with sultry basslines and Chatten’s echoing groans. The mirror is finally flipped, and we see that it is us who are making our own beds: “Your indifference won't make me disappear / And surely, you'll wake up in yourself / But you can't blame nobody else.” “I think Romance was maybe 60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling,” says Chatten about the last record. An uncanny valley theme runs rampant throughout this one, the band striving to blur the line between what benefits humanity and what doesn’t. “This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted— the mask is wearing the face a little more.”
“Demolition” breaks in with guns ablazing to spotlight the album’s rock-heavy portion. Hammering drums pound behind Chatten’s fiery inquisitions: “Tell me how to feel, what’s the deal? / Do I live in your bones?" while "Tongue" howls with sparkling bassline strides that spin what Romance was to a more sinister level.
Chatten’s lush vocals draw a spotlight in “One Man,” as he fully surrenders to the gateway drug of escapism. The crux of the album stands in the second verse alone, a balladic cry into a void he’s now welcomed in: “Dopamine chamber just tryna kill the pain / You can't escape the feeling once you've given it a name / Forget about your worries, I forget 'em all the time.” Acoustic guitar traces and meandering drums feel distant in the song's cavernous structure as his voice ascends higher and higher into the clouds with each passing note.
“Where Is Gone?” is the first time Fontaines D.C. has allowed an outside voice into their universe. ROSALÍA tangos with Chatten’s lovelorn lyrics in one of their most elegant numbers yet. Like a chest that rises and falls, the two dance around a melancholic melody with cinematic chemistry that makes their first collaboration difficult to beat. In an attempt to pick up pieces in a relationship, the devastating answer becomes clearer: they just don’t fit together anymore: “Baby, if you try / There’s no harm in saying, ‘Leave it, let it die.’”
“Japan” momentarily switches gears with a send-off reminiscent of an Oasis track. Its feel-good guitars glimmer with an ounce of hope, until you look closer at the detached relationship Chatten sings of: “When they fuck, she leaves her body for a while / And she pays for all his shit 'til he says thanks without a smile.” “Intimate” becomes the perfect final word without tying anything with a pretty bow. You’re still left feeling eerily hollow under Chatten’s ringing refrain of “Dying and dying and dead,” but the question now becomes clear: Where are you choosing to flee to?
Fontaines D.C.’s fifth studio album, Dopamine Chamber, is the Irish-rock band at their most evolved. They’ve cracked the code on what it takes to become a band of longevity: fearlessly exploring untapped territory and befriending whatever waits on the other side.
