When Fontaines D.C. arrived as poetic, scrappy post-punks on their 2019 debut Dogrel, few would have had them pinned as their generation’s finest (and commercially successful) bands. Just seven years on, however, the Irish five-piece have transcended any limitations or naysayers who said a rock band could no longer move culture in the 21st century: Get a load of these lads.
Dopamine Chamber is the band’s fifth album, and arrives in an ongoing purple patch for the group. Barely a year after their debut album came A Hero’s Death (2020), a moodier offering than their loquacious debut, and in 2022, they returned with Skinty Fia, their poppiest – and finest – collection to date.
The band broke cover internationally with 2024’s Grammy-nominated Romance, but even then it was with an obtuse sound that channeled influences from grunge, nu-metal, and hip-hop. Sizzling tracks like “Starburster” and “Bug” travelled far and wide on platforms like TikTok, and brought them to their biggest audiences yet. The LP landed at No. 97 on the Billboard 200, and has been certified platinum in the U.K., their first album to clear that benchmark.
Where Romance searched for solace in a world that felt increasingly confounding, Dopamine Chamber succumbs to and embraces the darkness. “I don’t think every album needs balance,” Grian Chatten, the band’s singer and primary lyricist told The New York Times. “I feel it’s a bit cookie cutter to try and be like, ‘We need some light and shade, all the time, on the track.’”
The soundscape is suitably oblique with nods to Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure and Massive Attack, and its subject matter bleaker still: dissociation, dissonance and despair. The LP takes on an even more tragic feel following the passing of their manager Trevor Dietz, who championed them from their earliest days; he died in June, aged 47, after the completion of Dopamine Chamber. “Marianne,” the album’s pounding lead single, was selected by the band based on Dietz’s conviction and belief in the song prior to his death.
That overwhelming sense of dread hasn’t put off fans; the group sold out their European arena tour, due for kick off in Lisbon on Oct. 21, in a matter of minutes. Next year, they’ll headline a number of stadiums across the U.K., and in Ireland, they’ll take on the 80,000-capacity Slane Castle — becoming the first domestic artist to headline the space since U2 in 2001. The biggest names are now calling: Rosalía appears on “Where Is Gone?,” the LP’s stunning centerpiece.
Dopamine Chamber treads a fine line between introspection and darkness, with stadium-headlining ambition and does so superbly. This could be the start of their Imperial Phrase, to borrow a phrase from Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tenant.
Below, our Billboard UK staff ranks the 11 tracks from Dopamine Chamber from worst to best.
