The idea of a place for your mind to run and hide – the Dopamine Chamber of which Fontaines D.C.’s fifth album wears the title of – is not a new one. Wars, social unrest, dictatorial men wielding power as tiny cocked cruelty, these things have always existed, ever since harvests failed and we ran out of animals to run off the cliff edge.
The difference now is the extent to which we’re able to shut out the world, or not, per taste. As the band’s frontman Grian Chatten has surmised recently with dead eyed understatement, it’s an interesting time to be a self. The record’s opening passages are a deliberate, chasm like shifts from their work to date: Six Shot Morning and Marianne are both synth heavy, redolent of the gothic tooling of imperial era Cure and Depeche Mode.
Chatten has proved himself over and over to be far too clever to box himself in however. Here seemingly without effort he’s able to throw off a whistleable ballad in Japan, New Order-esque Danceteria magic via Mimesis and on Happy For You, a more or less direct link to the band’s past. The peak though is to be found in the unlikely Western-tinged epic Where Is Gone?, a cinematic duet with Rosalia that sets out an intriguing clutch of new possibilities. Run and hide? Here? Dopamine Chamber welcomes you and shuts it’s door in equal measure. There’s room at this inn – if you can dream it.
You can read a full review here.
