Fontaines D.C. today announce their new album, ROMANCE. The full-length will drop on August 23rd via XL Recordings, and is the band’s first with producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys). With the announcement, the band have shared lead single “Starburster.” Inspired by a panic attack lead singer Grian Chatten suffered in London’s St Pancras station, the song is punctuated by sharp feral intakes of breath. Its propulsive beat and unrelenting lyrics establish self-destruction as fantasy before a brief moment of sobering clarity when the drums fall away and Chatten moves from spitting, almost-rap into an almost-psalm. The song is accompanied by a music video from director Aube Perrie (Megan Thee Stallion, Harry Styles, The Hives).

The ideas for ROMANCE arrived while while touring the U.S. and Mexico with Arctic Monkeys. They had time apart to build more singular visions for what future music could be: Carlos O’Connell went to Spain’s Castile-La Mancha and later became a new father, while Chatten spent time in LA, and Deegan in Paris. They laid deeper roots in London. Each member spent time pushing their boundaries – experimental riffs, chord progressions, and far-flung lyrical references without intentions for a record. The band spent a month writing together again, three weeks of pre-production in a North London studio, and a month in a chateau close to Paris, sleeping among studio equipment, completely immersed.

Of the album’s title, Conor Deegan says, “We’ve always had this sense of idealism and romance. Each album gets further away from observing that through the lens of Ireland, as directly as (Mercury Prize-nominated debut) Dogrel. The second album A Hero’s Death is about that detachment, and the third (Skinty Fia) is about Irishness dislocated in the diaspora. Now we look to where and what else there is to be romantic about.”

Expounding on the theme, Chatten recalls Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s anime Akira, where the embers of love develop despite a maelstrom of technological degradation and political corruption around its characters. “I’m fascinated by that – falling in love at the end of the world,” he says. “The album is about protecting that tiny flame. The bigger Armageddon looms, the more precious it becomes,” while O’Connell adds “This record is about deciding what’s fantasy – the tangible world, or where you go in your mind. What represents reality more? That feels almost spiritual for us.”

Fontaines D.C.
ROMANCE
XL Recordings

1. Romance
2. Starburster
3. Here’s The Thing
4. Desire
5. In The Modern World
6. Bug
7. Motorcycle Boy
8. Sundowner
9. Horseness is the Whatness
10. Death Kink
11. Favourite

Pre-order ROMANCE by Fontaines D.C. HERE