On the eve of the release for their fifth album, Dopamine Chamber, Fontaines D.C. put on a charity show in collaboration with the suicide prevention organization CALM at the 1,500-cap London venue, an underplay for the Irish musicians. The urgency of the crowd was palpable, a desire for proximity to the band and their music that threatened to swallow the venue whole. Sitting up on the balcony, I saw someone in a balaclava lashing out with excitement.
There was a man with devil horns at the front of the crowd — fitting for the band’s increasingly devious sound, and maybe a nod to the ones guitarist Carlos O’Connell wore in recent press photos. The stage was adorned with a giant F.T.D.C. sign, which flashed different colors during the show, and a giant silver curtain that looked like a big piece of agitated aluminum foil. It’s been an intriguing journey watching the five-piece evolve from gray post-punk to neon new wave.
Dopamine Chamber isn't euphoric in the way its title suggests. It extends the cinematic expansiveness of 2024's Romance, but without as many moments of pop release as "Starburster," "Bug," or "Favourite." "Mimesis" comes closest: Industrial clangs and tinsel synths announce a thrilling new direction, only for the lyrics to turn that rush into something ominous. "The everlasting now / Eternity is real" sounds less like a promise than a curse.
Where Romance made surrender feel almost thrillingly excessive, Dopamine Chamber strips away the illusion. Its synths shimmer, its vocals drift, and its songs seem to dissolve into a Lynchian dreamscape. But the longer you remain there, the less inviting it becomes.
The pleasure curdles into paranoia. This is music that dazzles you until you realize you're in the dark. The album is good, and I’m personally happy to see them linger in this territory where melancholic synths and flighty vocals swirl together like the aurora borealis.
And for a moment I am swept up in the luxury of it all, the nihilistic possibility or "dream fog" on the stunning "Marianne" and succeeding album highlight "Mimesis." But that wooziness is only attractive for so long. As the album progresses, the electricity of blurred keyboards feels like laughing faces, and the project begins to feel freaked out. It’s an album that dazzles you until you’re in the shadows.
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