Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. are officially back and have announced their fifth album. Dopamine Chamber arrives on Oct. 16 via XL Recordings and the record’s lead single, “Marianne,” is out now.
“Marianne” pulls from the same post-punk chords of their last album Romance. With atmospheric drums and brooding guitar, Chatten beckons the listener to him like a snake oil salesman: “This year, you should come and stay here,” he sings. “You can follow my lead/I can help you disappear.” “Marianne” takes partial inspiration in the 2024 miniseries Ripley, which starred fellow Irishman Andrew Scott.
Dopamine Chamber was produced by James Ford, who produced Romance. Per a press release, Dopamine Chamber‘s material will encompass the news items we see in our endless scroll, including the rise of AI, celebrity gossip, political violence, the existential threat of climate change, and all the gratifying memes they spawn. “The album itself is a dopamine chamber,” frontman Grian Chatten said in a statement. “You step inside and we test these different mind or mood-altering pieces of music on you.”
“Our albums have always questioned a sense of place,” bassist Conor Deegan added. “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?” To that point, Chatten himself spent a period traveling through Venice and Sicily in Italy and Vienna, Austria while writing the record. Likewise, Dopamine Chamber was recorded in various locales, including London, the English countryside, and Palermo, Italy, where Chatten built a DIY booth from mattresses and cushions.
“I think Romance was maybe 60 percent human and 40 percent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling,” Chatten continued. “This one feels more like 60 percent corrupted — the mask is wearing the face a little more. … I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”
Fontaines D.C. released their previous album, the Mercury Prize-nominated Romance, in 2024. At the 67th Grammy Awards, the album was nominated for Best Rock Album and the record’s lead single, “Starburster,” was nominated for Best Alternative Music Performance.
The band will play select festivals in Europe and the United States through late September, including Reading and Leeds Festival, Shaky Knees, Electric Picnic, and Sea.Hear.Now.
