Fontaines D.C. – Dopamine Chamber Review

Dopamine Chamber sounds like a busted limbic system that forces you to let all of the emotions hit you at once.

Fontaines D.C.’s slot supporting Arctic Monkeys’ 2023 North American tour now feels like a passing of the baton. Arctic Monkeys have receded from view, prompting rumours of at least semi-retirement, whilst Fontaines D.C. have continued their ascent to the top of guitar music where Alex Turner’s band have been proudly perched for so long. The two bands’ careers are mirrored in many ways. They both quickly became the most talked-about guitar bands in the country and released critically acclaimed and hugely popular debut albums. Neither band rested on their laurels and instead put their pedal to the metal to write, record and release five records in their first seven years. With each release both bands sought to reset expectations, develop their sound and surprise people with what they created. Each group has been rewarded with critical acclaim, bigger and bigger crowds and the title of the defining band of their generation.

Within this framing, we could have expected Fontaines D.C. to take Romance one step further on album number five and release a rock record primed to take them to a stratospheric level, as AM did for Arctic Monkeys. Instead, Dopamine Chamber is an altogether stranger, more experimental record, yet one that should take them to the same dizzying heights. With James Ford, a producer shared by both bands, once again at the helm having produced Romance, the sound is both lush and druggy; often dominated by mind-warping synths and thumping bass yet still coursing with the anthemic DNA that graces the best Fontaines songs. The opening song ‘Six Shot Morning’ is a case in point. A bleary synth bleeds over stuttering electronics and a muffled drumbeat as Chatten unconvincingly tells us of a ‘beautiful world’ at an ambling pace before an urgent cry of ‘always’ kicks the song into overdrive and beckons a wave of opulent synth.

Chatten’s voice has evolved at the same pace as the band. On Dogrel his delivery was barbed and barked, like he was trying to shout the last word while being pulled away from a fight. Since then his voice has been injected with a swagger most evident on Skinty Fia and evolved again on Romance where he started to, well, actually sing, and grow to like his own voice. On Dopamine Chamber his voice is thick, warm and honeyed. It is an anchoring counterweight to the scintillation of synths that spark on tracks like the Pet Shop Boys-aping ‘Mimesis’ or album highlight ‘Intimate’. In truth, whether it be Chatten’s voice, the wall of alt-rock guitars that pummel the final third of ‘Happy for You’, the lightening strings of ‘One Man’ and ‘You Miss Me’ or the glorious romp of ‘Marianne’, everything is thicker on Dopamine Chamber. So much so that next to it Romance, which had previously been the band’s most produced record, sounds thin. Instead, Dopamine Chamber sounds like a busted limbic system that forces you to let all of the emotions hit you at once.

Inevitably, such a rush would cause conflict and disagreement, as it does most evidently on ‘Japan’ and ‘Where Is Gone?’. The former is the fuzziest, brightest moment on the record. A nonchalant lullaby of a tune where Tom Coll’s drums sound like they would be comfortable helping Yoshimi battle pink robots. But the relationship Chatten narrates so breezily is almost comical in how one-sided and unpleasant it is. A more direct conflict yet comes in the form of Chatten’s duet with Rosalía where the duo trade verses with a twisted take on romance that closes on an ominous note: ‘It’s just the start of another show to hurt you and make you feel alive.’

The fact that Fontaines D.C. can call upon a pop star of Rosalía’s stature is a clear indication of their own place in the musical hierarchy. Should anyone doubt that, they would only need to look at the massive venues the band are booked to play over the next year. In many ways, Fontaines D.C. are inevitable. This perhaps should have been apparent when they dropped their second album, A Hero’s Death, just a year after their debut; even a global pandemic couldn’t slow their ascent. That decision also pointed to the risks that the band would be willing to take. Dopamine Chamber is another one of those risks, yet one that pays off magnificently: an album that will fill the fields and crown them as their era’s best.