Rob’s Album of The Week: Fontaines D.C.’s Romance
With the endless musical marketplace the internet provides, it’s difficult to nail down which style is reigning over the others these days. Mainstream pop has always had a strong presence and the fandom surrounding heavy metal and all of its subgenres is underrated. I personally have to say that I’m very impressed with what’s going on with the punk rock scene in Europe for the past few years. One of the bands leading this charge is Fontaines D.C., who hail from Dublin and consistently push the creative envelope with everything they put out. Their latest example is Romance, the post-punk act’s fourth full-length release that came out on August 23 via XL Recordings.
This was the first time the quintet of frontman Grian Chatten, and multi-instrumentalists Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, Tom Coll and Carlos O’Connell worked with producer James Ford, who is known for being a member of both the electronica duo Simian Mobile Disco and the psychedelic pop supergroup The Last Shadow Puppets. The two stylistic elements those acts abide by are present in the new album along with some guitar-driven grit. There’s some trip-hop that’s blended in as well, but there’s a nice balance between the lush electronics and the organic instrumentation. The harmonies add a substantial difference where in the past it seemed like Chatten was taking the vocal duties on his own.
I don’t know about you, but August has been a weird month. People have been acting strange where they’re bothering people who are just trying to go to the bathroom or jumping in the middle of the street to practice some sort of martial art. This is what I’ve only seen for the past couple of days, and if I really thought about it, I could come up with a few more examples from the past few weeks. Music can provide a nice departure from the craziness, which is one of the reasons why I write this review column. To accelerate this departure, here are my top tracks off of the Album of The Week:
“Starbuster” is the lead single off of Romance and it’s one of my favorite songs to come out so far in 2024. The drums give it a banger quality while Chatten relays his lyrics in a hip-hop fashion. That grit I mentioned earlier is best exemplified in “Here’s The Thing”. It’s very reminiscent of what Blur did during the ’90s, I don’t know if that’s done on purpose but it’s the vibe I’m getting. A return to that grit is “Death Kink”, which has an energetic and rhythmic structure.
Starting at the Showbox in Seattle on September 20, Fontaines D.C. are going to be embarking on a tour all over North America and Europe. Notable dates include September 26 at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, October 13 at Roadrunner in Boston, November 4 at Alcatraz in Milan, November 13 at Zénith Paris-La Villette in Paris, back-to-back shows at Alexandra Palace in London on November 22 & 23 and back-to-back hometown gigs at the 3Arena on December 6 & 7. I’m really hoping to catch that show in Boston and if these Irish lads are coming to your friendly neighborhood music venue, then you should go see them perform live. In the meantime, grab a copy of Romance. It’s an expansive take on post-punk that’s excellent.
In order to make Culture Beat’s content available to everyone, we decided to stop utilizing a paywall. With this being said, we are utilizing the crowdfunding service Buy Me A Coffee in order to have our readers support our endeavors, which they can do so right here.
