When Fontaines DC released their fourth album Romance in 2024, it felt like a major step-up for a band who’d done nothing but climb great heights since their formation. Few would have predicted that the Dublin quintet would quickly move from scrappy new-wave punk to big, glorious technicolour anthems in just five years. Even more exciting was predicting where they’d go next.

The answer to that question is Dopamine Chamber, a record that feels almost flawless on first listen and seems destined to end up near the top of many ‘end of year’ polls come December. Like the rest of their albums, it embellishes their sound and sees them exploring new sonic territory while remaining very recognisably themselves.

It somehow seems bigger and more grandiose than their previous work. Opening track Six Shot Morning is quite a brave introduction – deathly slow, built on some rumbling synths before it picks up the pace and transforms into an 80s style sleek anthem. Like a lot of the best tracks on the record, it suddenly morphs over its five minute running time into something exhilarating.

While the guitars haven’t been ditched completely – there’s an astonishing cacophony from Conor Curley and Carlos O’Connell towards the end of Happy For You, the main impression of Dopamine Chamber is of a band that have been listening to a lot of ’80s indie. There are nods to The Cure, Depeche Mode and on Mimesis it even feels like Peter Hook‘s famous bassline is making an appearance.

This isn’t blatant pastiche though. The band remain masters of the hook and Marianne is one of the catchiest songs on the record, a big swaggering anthem that sees lead singer Grian Chatten exploring themes of hedonism and escaping from the daily grind (“you can follow my lead, I can help you disappear” as one line puts it). It’s one of those songs that, once it’s wormed its way into your brain, refuses to leave.

Tongue has a jittery energy to it, with Tom Coll’s drums sounding absolutely gigantic, while Demolition is sneering, clattering garage rock that you can imagine sounding immense in arenas and stadiums. There’s also evidence of the band’s softer side in Japan, a beautiful acoustic lament that has a particular widescreen elegance to it.

Best of all is the much vaunted duet with Spanish musical polymath Rosalía which feels like the Dubliners’ bid to perform the next Bond theme. It’s a dramatic, string-drenched ballad which sees Rosalía and Chatten’s voices complement each other perfectly like a 21st century Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. It swoops and soars, and while it’s obviously not as inventive as anything on Rosalía’s endlessly ambitious Lux album, it’s still possibly one of the best things Fontaines DC have recorded to date.

The closing song Intimate ensures that the album ends on an intense note – full of clattering drums, almost overpowering synths and Chatten chanting “dying, dying, dying and dead”. It concludes an album that continues Fontaines DC’s trajectory as one of the most exciting bands working today: one who can evolve and develop while refusing to compromise any of their identity.