Romance | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | 23 August 2024 | |||
Length | 36:57 | |||
Label | XL | |||
Producer | James Ford | |||
Fontaines D.C. chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Romance | ||||
|
Romance is the fourth studio album by Irish rock band Fontaines D.C. Announced on 17 April 2024 along with the lead single, "Starburster", it was released on 23 August 2024. [1] It also features the singles "Favourite", "Here's the Thing", and "In the Modern World". It is their first release on XL Recordings, after the band left Partisan Records, and was produced by James Ford.
The album received acclaim from critics. In the United Kingdom, it sold more than double the first-week total of its number-one predecessor Skinty Fia. However, it debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart behind Sabrina Carpenter's Short n' Sweet. [2]
Grian Chatten told Mojo that they decided to step away from their Irish-centric themes for the album as it would have been too difficult to "sound like Ireland" while crafting a futuristic and dystopian vision called Romance. According to Chatten, the songwriting process was, as usual for the band, a "constant process" that happened between touring. The "spiritual form" of the album first emerged when he wrote the track "In the Modern World". He compared the process to soundtracking a city for which he finally understood the "colour and the year and the atmosphere and the temperature" of. The album was influenced by several locations as well as "certain atmospheres at certain times", including Tokyo. Chatten stated, "We write a lot more based on visual references than musical references. It's easier to be original." The album was also inspired by Japanese manga and Italian cinema. [3] The album is produced by James Ford. Drummer Tom Coll said that Romance was, in some ways, like the band's first-ever studio record in that they deliberately moved away from their long-held "if we can't play it live, let's not do it" mentality. [4]
"Horseness Is the Whatness", was written by guitarist Carlos O'Connell, and the title was taken from Ulysses . [4] The lyrics to "Here's the Thing" were built off the back of an argument between Chatten and O'Connell, and "In the Modern World" was inspired by Lana Del Rey's "strain of disillusionment". [5] "Favourite" originally had twelve verses written by Chatten, however, it was shortened to just four by the rest of the band. And, to Conor Curley, his lead vocals on "Sundowner" were by accident. [5]
Frontman Grian Chatten noted the influence of Dylan Thomas and the poem Land Sickness by Nikolaj Schultz [5] as well as the films Sunset Boulevard , The Great Beauty and Wings of Desire on his lyricism. [4]
In 2023, the band supported Arctic Monkeys on their North American tour and watched Blur play Wembley Stadium. Chatten said, "I didn't want to write, like, a "Champagne Supernova", but I did want to do something that felt like it was deep within and far without." [1] Guitarist Conor Curley found himself listening to much of Massive Attack and Portishead, as well as "Freedom Fighter" by Bowery Electric – feeling inspired by music that's already considered "classic". Drummer Tom Coll got "set off on a hip-hop vibe" – partially due to playing drums on the Kneecap album Fine Art – and immersed himself in grunge, going on to say he "probably left the house [Recording Studio] only three times in three weeks". [6]
The lead single "Starburster" saw guitarist Carlos O'Connell inspired by Deftones and Alice in Chains. It contains rapping, which Chatten said was influenced by Korn in a "tongue-in-cheek" manner, a band that "scared the shit out of me as a kid". [1]
"In the Modern World" is inspired by Akira 's "depiction of apocalyptic emotion", with Chatten mentioning "..I can hear the buildings collapsing." Conor Deegan mentioned beat poets in reference to the song's feel, saying: "That song, I get visions of On the Road , Jack Kerouac, driving through the desert in America, the beat-up 1950s car, right? And they stop into the motel for some warm cans of beer. The AC isn't working. The fan is spinning half-speed. All that shit." [6]
The horror-inspired music video for single "Here's the Thing" [7] drew comparisons to the films The Lost Boys (1987) and Phenomena (1985). [8] It was directed by Luna Carmoon, who confirmed the influence of Phenomena, and commented: [9]
I had, at the time, recently rewatched one of my favourite films: Dario Argento's Phenomena, which is the biggest influence on the music video. I just thought it'd be fantastic to see a world like this in the backdrop of the Irish dancing arena. You have a lot of films like Drop Dead Gorgeous about American Beauty pageants, but you don't really have that in Britain or Ireland, that kind of hyper-femininity meets violence. The Lost Boys was another big influence. I wanted it to be Lost Boys but Girls.
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AnyDecentMusic? | 8.8/10 [10] |
Metacritic | 89/100 [11] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [12] |
The Guardian | [13] |
The Irish Times | [14] |
Mojo | [15] |
NME | [16] |
Pitchfork | 7.7/10 [17] |
Record Collector | [18] |
Rolling Stone UK | [19] |
Uncut | 8/10 [20] |
Keith Cameron of Mojo rated it 4 out of 5 stars, stating, "Inspired by Japanese manga and Italian cinema, the Irish quintet's fourth searches for truth in a world gone wrong." Cameron continued: "The more conventionally arranged Bug still has him [Grian] threading words like a tessellated moving pavement [...]. With the music's adjacency to "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out", it occurs that just like The Smiths, this is a rock band with both a fresh vocabulary and behavioural code." [15]
Shaun Curran, while writing for Record Collector , gave the album 4 stars out of 5, concluding, "It's startling to think how far Fontaines D.C. have travelled creatively in five years, through an agitated, restlessness, a vivid imagination and courage to try the new." Curran also named "Favourite" as the best song on the album, describing it as a "sound-of-the-summer" track where shoegaze meets The Cure. [18]
The Irish Times 's Tony Clayton gave the album a 4.5 out of 5 stars, concluding the band's evolution through the album as, "It's all quite a remove from "Boys in the Better Land", "Liberty Belle", "Too Real" and "Big", but Fontaines DC rightly ask what the point is if you have to ask permission to evolve." The last track "Favourite" also was named as the best song with "irresistible jangly guitars and, perhaps, is a sign of what to expect on album number five". [14]
Alexis Petridis, The Guardian 's head rock and pop critic, named the album as "album of the week" - giving the album 5 out of 5 stars - and surmised the impact as: Romance is more straightforwardly approachable than any Fontaines DC album to date – you can easily imagine "Desire" provoking an immense crowd into singing along. But it doesn't sacrifice any of the band's potency in the process: thrillingly, it still carries the same grimy, careworn, aggressive qualities as their previous work." [13]
Uncut 's Daniel Dylan rated it an 8/10, describing the album and the band's sonic evolution as, "From the electronic slow-build moody ruminations of Romance via the panic-attack-inspired "Starburster" or the swooping harmonies of "In the Modern World", it feels as though the band have carved out a new sonic space for them to operate in while still retaining their own identity." [20]
NME gave the album five stars, calling it "an album that charts the devastating duality of its title." They called Romance the band's "most considered and intricately crafted release yet". [16]
All tracks are written by Grian Chatten, Conor Curley, Carlos O'Connell, Conor Deegan and Tom Coll, unless noted otherwise.
No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Romance" | 2:33 | |
2. | "Starburster" | 3:41 | |
3. | "Here's the Thing" | 2:43 | |
4. | "Desire" | 3:39 | |
5. | "In the Modern World" | 4:26 | |
6. | "Bug" | 3:02 | |
7. | "Motorcycle Boy" | 3:42 | |
8. | "Sundowner" | Conor Curley | 3:25 |
9. | "Horseness Is the Whatness" | Carlos O'Connell | 3:07 |
10. | "Death Kink" | 2:23 | |
11. | "Favourite" | 4:16 | |
Total length: | 36:57 |
Fontaines D.C:
Additional credits:
Chart (2024) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australian Albums (ARIA) [22] | 6 |
Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria) [23] | 7 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders) [24] | 2 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia) [25] | 2 |
Danish Albums (Hitlisten) [26] | 23 |
Dutch Albums (Album Top 100) [27] | 2 |
Finnish Albums (Suomen virallinen lista) [28] | 32 |
French Albums (SNEP) [29] | 3 |
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100) [30] | 6 |
Irish Albums (OCC) [31] | 2 |
Italian Albums (FIMI) [32] | 8 |
Lithuanian Albums (AGATA) [33] | 48 |
New Zealand Albums (RMNZ) [34] | 6 |
Polish Albums (ZPAV) [35] | 16 |
Portuguese Albums (AFP) [36] | 4 |
Scottish Albums (OCC) [37] | 2 |
Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE) [38] | 9 |
Swedish Physical Albums (Sverigetopplistan) [39] | 3 |
Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade) [40] | 3 |
UK Albums (OCC) [41] | 2 |
UK Independent Albums (OCC) [42] | 1 |
US Billboard 200 [43] | 97 |
US Independent Albums (Billboard) [44] | 16 |
US Top Rock & Alternative Albums ( Billboard ) [45] | 20 |
Keep the Faith is the fifth studio album by American rock band Bon Jovi, released on November 3, 1992, by Mercury Records. It is Bon Jovi's last studio album to feature all five original band members as bass guitarist Alec John Such was dismissed from the band in 1994, though it was not his last release with the band. It is Bon Jovi's first album to not be produced by either Lance Quinn or Bruce Fairbairn. The album was produced by Bob Rock and was recorded at the Little Mountain Sound Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia. Keep the Faith marked a change to a "more serious interpretation of the band's pop-metal groove". It is also Bon Jovi's longest album to date, clocking in at 66 minutes.
I've Been Expecting You is the second studio album by English recording artist Robbie Williams. It was released on 26 October 1998 through Chrysalis Records. The album spawned five singles, including lead single "Millennium", which became Williams' first UK number-one hit.
Songs from the Sparkle Lounge is the tenth studio album by the English rock band Def Leppard. It was released on 25 April 2008 in Europe and 29 April in North America.
Dogrel is the debut studio album by Dublin post-punk band Fontaines D.C. It was released through Partisan Records on 12 April 2019 on cassette, CD, digital download, and vinyl formats. The album was nominated for Album of The Year at the Choice Music Prize and Mercury Prize in 2019.
Conor Oberst is the fourth solo studio album by Conor Oberst, of the band Bright Eyes, which was released on August 4, 2008 by Merge Records. The album debuted on the UK Albums Chart at #37 and reached #15 on the Billboard Top 200. It sold 98,000 copies in the US as of August 2009.
Partisan Records is an independent record label with offices in London, Berlin, and Los Angeles, as well as in New York City, where the company was co-founded in 2007 by Tim Putnam and Ian Wheeler. The label, initially run out of Putnam's South Brooklyn apartment, relocated in 2009 to Williamsburg.
Walk Between Worlds is the eighteenth studio album by Scottish rock band Simple Minds, released in February 2018 by BMG.
Fontaines D.C. are an Irish post-punk band formed in Dublin in 2014. The band consists of Grian Chatten (vocals), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan III (bass), Tom Coll (drums) and Carlos O'Connell (guitar).
A Hero's Death is the second studio album by Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C. The album was released on 31 July 2020 through Partisan Records, less than 18 months after the release of their debut album Dogrel. The album received critical acclaim upon its release, signifying a partial departure from their bubbling and anxiety-inducing post-punk sound found on their first record to the incorporation of more dream-like and psychedelic aspects having taken inspiration from The Beach Boys, to name but one of many influences, during the writing of the record.
"I Don't Belong" is a song by Irish band Fontaines D.C. from their second studio album, A Hero's Death (2020). The song was written by Carlos O'Connell, Conor Curley, Conor Deegan III, Grian Chatten and Tom Coll, while production was handled by Dan Carey. It was released on 9 June 2020 by Rough Trade and Partisan Records as the second single from the album.
Cherry Blossom is the fifth studio album by the British pop rock band the Vamps. It was released on 16 October 2020 via EMI Records, and includes the single "Married in Vegas". The album debuted atop the UK Albums Chart, becoming the Vamps' second number-one album in their home country. It is promoted by a concert tour that begun on 6 September 2021.
Skinty Fia is the third studio album by Irish rock band Fontaines D.C. It was released on 22 April 2022 via Partisan Records. Like the band's two previous albums – 2019's Dogrel and 2020's A Hero's Death – Skinty Fia was produced by Dan Carey. Its title refers to an old Irish saying that drummer Tom Coll's great-aunt used to say; the phrase "Skinty Fia" translates to "the damnation of the deer". Both the title and the cover art allude to the extinct Irish elk, also known as the "giant deer".
"Jackie Down the Line" is a song by Irish band, Fontaines D.C. The song is the lead single off of their third studio album, Skinty Fia and was released on 12 January 2022.
This Is What We Do is the fourth studio album by English electronic group Leftfield. It was released on 2 December 2022 by Virgin Records. It is the band's first album in seven years, following the 2015 album Alternative Light Source. The album features appearances by Fontaines D.C. frontman Grian Chatten and poet Lemn Sissay.
Ugly is the third studio album by British rapper Slowthai. It was released on 3 March 2023 through Method Records and Interscope Records. The album features Slowthai introducing punk and rock elements to his sound, which received acclaim from critics.
Grian Chatten is an Irish musician, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of post-punk band Fontaines D.C.
Chaos for the Fly is the debut studio album by Irish musician Grian Chatten, best known as the frontman for the post-punk band Fontaines D.C. The album was recorded in two weeks with said band's regular producer Dan Carey and features orchestral arrangements. The title is a reference to a quote by Morticia Addams.
"Starburster" is a song by Irish rock band Fontaines D.C. It was released on 17 April 2024 as the lead single from the band's fourth studio album Romance.
Viva Hinds is the fourth studio album by Spanish garage rock band Hinds. The album was released on 6 September 2024 under Lucky Number and is the band's first new album in four years since the 2020 release of The Prettiest Curse. The album marks the first release by the band since the departure of bassist Ade Martin and drummer Amber Grimbergen who quit the band in 2022. Viva Hinds was preceded by the singles and music videos for "Coffee", "Boom Boom Back", "En Forma", "Superstar" and "The Bed, the Room, the Rain and You".
Fine Art is the second studio album by Irish hip hop trio Kneecap, released on 14 June 2024 through Heavenly Recordings. It includes guest appearances by Radie Peat, Grian Chatten, Nino, and Jelani Blackman. The album received positive reviews from critics.