Fontaines D.C.’s Dopamine Chamber Is a New Wave Horror Show: Review

Fontaines D.C.’s second-ever single was 2017’s “Hurricane Laughter.” It’s one big swell of charged, chugging rhythm, with a siren-like guitar line and Grian Chatten acting as the band’s doomsday preacher. “And there is no connection available,” Chatten warned repeatedly as the song ballooned into hysterical chaos. Good luck finding the eye in that hurricane; Fontaines D.C. took whatever sweetness lingered in their sound and rendered it maniacal. Nine years later, Fontaines D.C. remain excellent at giving you a poisoned candy apple, of luring you in before surrounding you in darkness. It’s the same nightmare-reprieve-nightmare cycle that powered 2024’s “Starburster,” one of the Irish group’s biggest and best songs to-date; at one moment, Chatten provides a lullaby, and at the next, he’s literally grasping for air. On Dopamine Chamber, the band’s fifth album, Fontaines D.C. sustain this cycle by stretching it across a whole record, using a Depeche Mode-esque New Wave palette to paint a portrait of 2020s dystopia. It’s a bold follow-up to their seismic fourth album, Romance, even though the poison often arrives before the candy. Get Fontaines D.C. Tickets Here Lead single “Marianne” i...