Fontaines D.C. sign to XL Reocrdings and announce their fourth studio album, ROMANCE

ROMANCE is the follow-up to 2022's Skinty Fia, 2020's Grammy-nominated A Hero's Death, and their Mercury Prize-nominated debut, Dogrel.

Of the album’s title, Conor Deegan says, “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.”

Expounding on the theme, Chatten recalls Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s anime Akira, where the embers of love develop despite a maelstrom of technological degradation and political corruption around its characters. “I’m fascinated by that - falling in love at the end of the world,” he says. “The album is about protecting that tiny flame. The bigger armageddon looms, the more precious it becomes,” while O’Connell adds: “This record is about deciding what’s fantasy – the tangible world, or where you go in your mind. What represents reality more? That feels almost spiritual for us."

Tracklist:

1. Romance
2. Starburster
3. Here’s The Thing
4. Desire
5. In The Modern World
6. Bug
7. Motorcycle Boy
8. Sundowner
9. Horseness is the Whatness
10. Death Kink
11. Favourite