Review: FONTAINES DC – “Dopamine Chamber”

Before throwing myself into the liturgical, and even a little lysergic, listening to «Dopamine Chamber», I wanted to review.

I listened to «Dogrel», the 2019 debut in its entirety. It was a curiosity of mine: to understand at what point Fontaines DC had reached their fifth album.

I make no secret of thinking so: for me the Dubliners are the best band of the last decade. There are no comparisons, they win hands down. «Dogrel», incidentally, when listened to again today, sounds even better than it did then. Then I started with my usual three listens.

The album, eleven songs recorded between London, the English countryside and Palermo, opens with Six Shot Morninga carpet of synths on which Grian Chatten’s voice enters, dense and obsessive, dopamine to the letter. Mariannethe first single, I already knew her. On the third track, MimesisI faint.

The dishes at the opening have the same sizzle as She’s Lost Control of Joy Division, what Martin Hannett achieved by spraying a can of tape cleaner in front of the microphone. Then comes that «again, again, again» repeated to the point of obsession, perfect mimesis of In Forest of the Cure. The title didn’t lie. Chatten’s voice enters straight into me: martial drums, sharp guitars, a Peter Hook-style bass and eighties synths.

Happy for You it wraps around itself in a dark and delicate embrace, then in the end it dismantles itself and almost becomes a Nirvana piece. Demolition the counterpoint chorus doesn’t convince me. Tonguethe other single, has an alien development. One Man contains the formula that gives the album its title, and closes it with an orchestration that I love, the one that acts as a bridge towards Where Is Gone? Here is Rosalía, on an arrangement that has something of the title tracks of James Bond and a text made of framed memories and a world that measures everything in price. She and Chatten look like the new Nick Cave and PJ Harvey.

After the suspended parenthesis we return to the darkness with You Miss Mewhich however is saved in the finale thanks to a riot of strings. Japan it’s the most pop song on the album. Intimate closes with an obsessive imprinting with an almost rap aftertaste.

Lyrically, «Dopamine Chamber» is a dystopian epic. Chatten puts environmental collapse, political violence and artificial intelligence in the same feed, alongside memes and gossip, and lets love and pain pass through them. It’s not a lyrical masterpiece, but it’s cohesive and coherent. Chatten continues to wonder how true the desire that moves him is, and when he promises salvation he suspects that it is yet another trap. He himself said that he left out hope on purpose: the record was supposed to sound like a warning.

Musically, Fontaines are very far from the raw guitar punk of «Dogrel». The turning point is electronic, with the breath of a soundtrack, and in several songs the guitars disappear completely. The group ends up closer to New Order and its surroundings, and to the strings of «Chaos for the Fly», Chatten’s solo album, than to the rest of their journey.

Once I’ve finished listening, I start reading. I never do this before, so as not to taint my judgment. I start from the review from Slant Magazine, two and a half stars, and arrive at the full five stars from the Guardian, which opens the review with a prologue on the Faustian pact. Two opposite readings, both sensible. Slant is about rock nostalgia treated like a brand. He accuses the band of using the cues of past genres without saying anything meaningful about today’s malaise. You’re right about the first part: I myself have filled this review of Joy Division, Cure and New Order. I don’t agree with the second one. A record that talks about a world made of synthetic copies, and which titles its most derivative song Mimesisthe quotation does not suffer it: it makes it its own argument.

And me? I liked the album. I started from «Dogrel» to measure the distance, and the distance is enormous. It’s called growth, and it’s why the crown of the decade, as far as I’m concerned, remains in Dublin. It will certainly be among my albums for 2026.

TO LISTEN NOW

Six Shot Morning – Mimesis – Where Is Gone? (feat. ROSALÍA)

TO BE SKIPPED IMMEDIATELY

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Calibrated and perfect!

SCORE: 9.00

THE VOTES OF OTHERS

Nme: Score 10
The Guardian: Rating 10
Clash Music: Rating 8.00
Mojo: Rating 8.00
Rolling Stone (USA) – Rating 8.00
Uncut – Rating 7.00
Slant Music – Rating 5.00

TRACKLIST

Six Shot Morning