Review: Fontaines D.C. shake things up on ‘Romance,’ their best album yet

“Maybe romance is a place,” Grian Chatten ponders on the opening song and title track to Fontaines D.C.‘s fourth album. “For me…and you.” They have definitely gone to a new place on Romance, a major leap forward for the Dublin band

Fontaines have pretty much torn up the rule book they had established across their terrific first three albums: they left Partisan Records for XL, said goodbye to producer Dan Carey, brought in Arctic Monkeys collaborator James Ford, and switched from silver gelatin monochrome to dayglo, both visually and sonically. It’s a conscious left turn and a step up. Written mostly on acoustic guitar while on tour with Arctic Monkeys in 2023, these songs don’t feel like anything they’ve done before. The garagey, shouty and ultramoody post-punk of “The Boys in the Land” and “Televised Mind” is out, and in its place is grand, cinematic rock.

They’ve also slowed down a little which gives everything a little more room to breathe and soar. Frontman Grian Chatten’s excellent, often pastoral 2023 solo album, Chaos for the Fly, feels like it has more to do with Romance than the band’s first three albums. His thick-accented and sullen wail was a signature of Dogrel, A Hero’s Death and Skinty Fia, but here he really sings and it’s a bit of a revelation. Turns out Chatten’s got a wonderful voice that opens up a whole world of melody and harmony that was rarely allowed to shine like this before. And an incredible batch of tunes he gets to sing on.

If this was the ’90s, a decade that seems to be a big influence on Romance, they would be releasing singles from the album for a full year, as it’s so stacked with hits. These 11 songs feature the kind of smart construction, clever arrangements and stacking of hooks you just don’t get much anymore. For example: the countermelody backing vocals on disarming, string-laden ballad “In the Modern World”; the way they let everything but the rhythm section drop out of the Cure-esque “Bug”; the bass-driven, shoegazy atmosphere on “Sundowner”; and the panic attack gasps of banger first single “Starburster.”

Meanwhile, Chatten’s lyrics have never been more introspective, relatable and, yes, romantic. “if there was lightning in me,” he sings on the jangling “Favourite” which closes out the album. “Then you know who it was for.” In shaking things up so completely, Fontaines D.C. may lose a few early longtime fans hoping for more of the same, but they’ve made their best record yet by a mile.

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