Fontaines D.C. announce details of new album ‘Dopamine Chamber’ with epic single ‘Marianne’
“The album itself is a dopamine chamber,” says frontman Grian Chatten. “You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you"
by Andrew Trendell · NMEFontaines D.C. have finally released the epic and cinematic single ‘Marianne’ to announce new album ‘Dopamine Chamber’. Listen and find all the details below.
The Irish indie heroes have been teasing their return for some weeks now, playing ‘Marianne’ alongside another new song, ‘Six Shot Morning’, at their summer comeback shows before confirming that the single and new album were imminent. Later, they revealed that their fifth studio record would be called ‘Dopamine Chamber‘ in a cryptic online teaser.
Now, the band have shared the single in full to announce that the James Ford-produced ‘Dopamine Chamber’ will arrive on October 16 via XL Recordings. Fans can pre-order the album here.
The cinematic synth-noir ‘Marianne’ was inspired in part by the 2024 thriller series Ripley, and draws on feelings of escapism and surrender in the face of oblivion and catastrophe as frontman Grian Chatten offers: “This year, you should come and stay here, you can follow my lead, I can help you disappear…”
In a five-star review of the single, NME wrote that ‘Marianne’ “comes from a destination of tension piercing a surreal dream, a dark lullaby where the elegiac synth majesty of Depeche Mode meets a widescreen David Lynch scene of lush strings. The sense of place is well-earned, and the longing is ultra real. While ‘Starburster’ was a sharp shock and intake of breath, ‘Marianne’ is an opening scene set in opulent colour and dizzying sound.” Check out our review in full here.
- READ MORE: At home with Fontaines D.C.’s Grian Chatten: “Our personality is bigger than the sound that we make”
The follow-up to 2024’s acclaimed and Mercury-nominated ‘Romance’ follows the band’s recent contributions to the Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man soundtrack and the War Child ‘Help(2)’ album. ‘Dopamine Chamber’ moves deeper into “darker and more synthetic sounds”, and searches for pleasure amid peril “in a world tipping towards collapse” from threats in digital and artificial worlds, as the band shared in an official statement.
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“The album itself is a dopamine chamber,” said Chatten. “You step inside and we test these different mind or mood-altering pieces of music on you.”
The frontman, who spent time visiting Venice, Vienna and Sicily in search of lyrical inspiration, continued: “I think ‘Romance’ was maybe 60 per cent human and 40 per cent corrupted by automation, and a loss of feeling. This one feels more like 60 per cent corrupted – the mask is wearing the face a little more. I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness honestly. This one needed to feel more like a catastrophic warning.”
Chatten added: “There’s a poignant sense of us being on the brink of some other kind of form of humanity, or non-humanity.”
Leaning into the themes of the record, bassist Conor ‘Deego’ Deegan shared: “Our albums have always questioned a sense of place. First Dublin, then being away from Dublin, and then trying to find the romance elsewhere. On this record, the question became: where do you escape to?”
Fontaines D.C. will continue their summer European headline tour with dates including stops topping the bill at both Reading & Leeds and their homecoming at Electric Picnic before a short run of US dates. A further headline tour to support ‘Dopamine Chamber’ in 2026 into 2027 is expected to be announced in the weeks ahead.
Check out their upcoming dates so far below and visit here for tickets and information.
AUGUST
18 – Les Docks, Lausanne, Switzerland
20 – FM4 Frequency, Sankt Polten, Austria
28 – Reading Festival, UK
29 – Leeds Festival, UK
30 – Electric Picnic, Ireland
SEPTEMBER
18 – Shaky Knees, Atlanta, GA, USA
20 – Sea.Hear.Now, Asbury Park, NJ, USA
27 – Ohana Festival, Dana Point, CA, USA
In January, guitarist Carlos O’Connell told NME about progress on new Fontaines D.C. material, when he also told us whether any of the visual elements of the ‘Romance’ tour could remain for Fontaines’ 2026 dates. “I think ‘Romance’ was so intense in every [way]… the visual, the production, the setlist… It wasn’t just about the music,” he told us.
“It’s almost a bit of the identity of the band now, but I guess that’s the decision to make. Does that become the identity of the band, or actually, it’s just a phase and you reinvent it? I don’t know.”
O’Connell continued: “I personally like the idea of revisiting some old stuff at Reading & Leeds, making the setlist maybe a bit more ‘Dogrel’-heavy. I’m excited about that. I’ve been listening to music like that much more. This morning I was listening to Sonic Youth. I want to go [in] that direction, but we’ll see, because anything could happen now – literally anything.”
August began with Fontaines D.C. playing their first performance since the recent unexpected passing of their beloved manager, Irish music scene legend and “sixth member” Trevor Dietz, delivering the final ever BBC live session at Maida Vale for 6 Music.
This month also saw author, musician and journalist John Robb share an exclusive excerpt from his memoirs with NME, in which he discussed being one of the first to discover Fontaines D.C. as well as discussing unheard material he has from the band in his vault.