- 2024-08-25
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MUSIC
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Fontaines D.C. Releases New Album “Romance”
Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C., consisting of Carlos O'Connell (guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan III (bass), Grian Chatten (vocals) and Tom Coll (drums), released their fourth studio album “Romance” on August 23, 2024.
The album is the first release under their new label XL Recordings.
The album comprises a 11-track and is inspired by Japanese anime Katsuhiro Otomo's “Akira”, Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's 2013 film ”La Grande Bellezza”, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's ”Pusher” films and American director Tim Burton. Produced by James Ford.
The band frontman Grian Chatten said, “I'm fascinated by that - falling in love at the end of the world. The album is about protecting that tiny flame. The bigger Armageddon looms, the more precious it becomes. We say things on this record we've wanted to say for a long time. I never feel like it's over, but it's nice to feel lighter.”
He continued, “I think the whole record has a sort of directed by Tim Burton, feeling the better, in a way, and that's kind of what I thought about when it's just, we wanted it to be a sort of place that wasn't necessarily anchored in a real space, as an imaginary landscape and futuristic maybe, and something that we can kind of call around.”- The band guitarist Conor Curley said of the album, “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 Dogrel. The second album is about that detachment, and the third is about Irishness dislocated in the diaspora. Now we look to where and what else there is to be romantic about.”
Bassist Conor Deegan III continued, “I think that we were starting to look at ourselves our previous work, and our see it aging in front of us, or seeing ourselves age out of us. And we wanted to not go on to any kinds of tracks like we're appearing in front of us for our career and for what we could be as a band like I think a lot of bands could just continue on a certain route that they've laid out with music, and I think that that's quite comfortable or something, and it leads to some kind of kind of place and see.”
Drummer Tom Coll said, “We didn't set out to make a trilogy of albums (their previous three albums) but that's sort of what happened. They were such a tight world, and this time we wanted to step outside of it and change it up. A big inspiration for this record was going to Tokyo for the first time. It's such a visual, neon-filled, supermodern city. It was so inspiring. It brought in all these new visual references to the creative process for the first time.” -
The band explained track-by-track for the album via Apple Music.
“Romance”
“This is one that we wrote really late at night in the studio. It just fell out of us. It was one of those real moments of feeling, 'Right, that's the first track on the album.' It's kind of like a palate cleanser for everything that's come before. It's like the opening scene. I feel like every time we've done a record there's been one tune that's always stuck out like, 'This is our opening gambit...'”
“Starburster”
“Grian [Chatten, singer] wrote most of this tune on his laptop, so there were lots of chopped-up strings and stuff—it was quite a hip-hop creative process. It's probably the song that is furthest away from the old us on this album. This tune was the first single and we always try and shock people a bit. It's fun to do that.”
“Here's the Thing”
“This was written in the last hour of being in the studio. We had maybe 12 or 13 tracks ready to go and just started jamming, and it presented itself in an hour. [Guitarist Conor] Curley had this really gnarly, '90s, piercing tone, and it just went from there.”
“Desire”
“This has been knocking around for ages. It was one of those tunes that took so many goes to get to where it was meant to sit. It started as a band setup and then we went really electronic with it. Then in the studio, we took it all back. It took a while for it to sit properly. Grian did 20 or 30 vocal layers on that, he really arranged it in an amazing way. Carlos [O'Connell, guitarist] and Grian were the main string arrangers on this record. This was the first record where we actually got a string quartet in—before, people would just send it over. So being able to sit in the room and watch a string quartet take center stage on a song was amazing.”
“In the Modern World”
“Grian wrote this song when he was in LA. He was really inspired by Lana Del Rey and stuff like that. Hollywood and the glitz and the glamour, but it's actually this decrepit place. It's that whole idea of faded glamour.”
“Bug”
“This felt like a really easy song for us to write. That kind of buzzy, all-of-us-in-the-same-room tune. I really fought for this one to be on the record. I feel like, with songs like that, trying to skew them and put a spin on them that they don't need is overwriting. If it feels right then there's no point in laboring over it. That song is what it is and it's great. It's going to be amazing live.”
“Motorcycle Boy”
“This one is inspired by The Smashing Pumpkins a bit. We actually recorded it six months before the rest of the album. This tune was the real genesis of the record and us finding a path and being like, 'OK, we can explore down here...' That was one that really set the wheels in motion for the album. It really informed where we were going.”
“Sundowner”
“On this album, we were probably coming from more singular points than we have before. A lot of the lads brought in tunes that were pretty much there. I was sharing a room with Curley in London, and he was working on this really shoegaze-inspired tune for ages. I think he always thought that Grian would sing it, but when he put down the guide vocals in the studio it sounded great. We were all like, 'You are singing this now.'”
“Horseness Is the Whatness”
“Carlos sent me a demo of that tune ages and ages ago. It was just him on an acoustic, and it was such a powerful lyric. I think it's amazing. We had to kind of deconstruct it and build it back up again in terms of making it fit for this record. Carlos had made three or four drum loops for me and it was a really fun experience to try and recreate that. I don't know how we're going to play it live but we'll sort it out!”
“Death Kink”
“Again, this came from one of the jams of us setting up for a studio session. It's another one of those band-in-a-room-jamming-out kind of tunes. On tour in America, we really honed where everything should sit in the set. This is going to be such a fun tune to play live. We've started playing it already and it's been so sick.”
“Favourite”
“'Favourite' was another one we wrote when we were rehearsing. It happened pretty much as it is now. We were kind of nervous about touching it again for the album because that first recording was so good. That's the song that hung around in our camp for the longest. When we write songs on tour, often we end up getting bored of them over time but 'Favourite' really stuck. We had a lot of conversations about the order on this album and I felt it was really important to move from 'Romance' to 'Favourite.' It feels like a journey from darkness into light, and finishing on 'Favourite' leaves it in a good spot.”
Photo by Simon Wheatley - source : Apple Music
