First, disorientation; then, redefinition. Lime green and white strobe lights stutter across five busy silhouettes, slicing their movements into nanosecond jump cuts. Then a deep blast of synth bass drives home the point that Fontaines DC – a band once so defined by their home city that “Dublin City” is engraved into their name – may no longer be the Irish literary post-punk rabble-rousers that fans have grown to know over the past five years. Fontaines are still indelibly tinged with emerald, but now it’s a more lurid, palate-stripping shade, one not a million miles from pop maven Charli XCX’s brat green.
This moody assault on the senses resolves into Romance, the title track of Fontaines DC’s fourth album, released days earlier. Low-slung and menacing, it sounds a little like Depeche Mode – a kinship underlined by singer Grian Chatten’s doomy intonation (“Into the darkness again,” he sings). Post-punk to stadium goth is no vast leap, but it’s worth noting that Romance producer James Ford’s lengthy CV includes not only Arctic Monkeys – the band to whom Fontaines DC are most often compared in terms of positioning – but Depeche Mode’s most recent work.
