Fontaines D.C. - Romance

Four albums in and Fontaines D.C. are doing something very few bands manage: getting more ambitious with each record without losing any of the raw energy that made people care in the first place. Romance, released August 23, 2024 and their first on XL Recordings, is their boldest and most expansive statement yet, produced by James Ford and built around a deliberate decision to step away from the Irish-centric themes of their earlier work and into something more cinematic, futuristic, and deliberately strange.

The album sold more than double the first-week numbers of its chart-topping predecessor Skinty Fia, debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart, and earned two Grammy nominations including Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance for lead single "Starburster." That track, inspired by panic attacks and delivered with Grian Chatten's swaggering stream of consciousness colliding against explosive, Deftones-adjacent production, announced the album with complete conviction. From there Romance moves through diverse and surprising terrain: the swooping harmonies of "In the Modern World," inspired by the apocalyptic imagery of the anime Akira; the grunge-infused propulsion of "Here's the Thing"; the dreamy, slow-burning opener "Romance" itself; and the jangly closing gem "Favourite," which sounds like The Cure circa Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me filtered through a band who have spent five years finding their own voice and finally feel fully at home in it.

The band deliberately abandoned their longstanding rule of only recording what they could play live, and the freedom that unlocked runs through every track. James Ford's production gives the record a lush, layered depth that rewards headphone listening while losing nothing in a festival field. The Guardian awarded it five stars. NME gave it five stars. Critics called it both their most approachable and their most potent record yet, a combination that is harder to pull off than it sounds.