Fontaines D.C. ‘Romance’ review: generational greats come of age

When Fontaines D.C. dropped their debut album Dogrel in 2019, the Irish post-punkers were heralded in some quarters as generational voices, a band that was able to dissect their Irish identity in a way so acute that it evoked the spirit of that nation’s great poets — whether that was classic voices like James Joyce or modern hellraisers such as Shane McGowan. 

“Dublin in the rain is mine,” the group’s singer Grian Chatten famously affirmed on the spiky punk of ‘Big’.   

This thread continued all the way to their third album, 2022’s Skinty Fia, in which they offered the perspective of a band wracked with a degree of guilt when they moved away to London after hitting the big time. 

But two years later, their return feels like a hard reset. This time around, it seems that this record is defined by something less rooted in reality and a search for something far more fantastical. To paraphrase a very famous quote from Dorothy Gale: “We’re not in Dublin anymore, Toto.”  

The first sign of this came when they released the swaggering lead single ‘Starburster’, which saw the group decked out in oversized sports tops, hair clips and wraparound sunglasses. 

It seemed like a sign that the band were searching for something bigger, and that’s only too clear on the sound of this latest record.  

On the titular opening track, the group display an unsettling, Kubrickian edge as Chatten croons “Maybe romance is a place” over imposing, piercing instrumentals. 

At times, it feels like this bigger sound is that of a band triumphantly gunning for the big leagues too, cementing their place as generational greats. It’s shown on that aforementioned rock-star verve of ‘Starburster’, but the searing ‘Death Kink’ — an examination of toxic relationships — feels like one of the best songs that Chatten has ever written.  

As the album closes too, ‘Favourite’ feels like the closest thing they’ve ever managed to a driving song. We mean this entirely in the positive sense; it’s the kind of softly melodic, hook-laden number that could be paired nicely with a sun-soaked trip through the country, windows fully down, of course. 

All of which is to say this: Fontaines D.C. have abandoned the serious for the fantastical, the tangible for the surreal. This new identity and successful quest for something, ahem, BIG, suits them down to the ground. They’re in a brilliant world, and indeed a league of their own.