Fontaines D.C. have never sounded particularly interested in standing still, but new single ‘Tongue’ suggests the Dublin band are now actively pulling apart the things that once made them recognisable.
Released on 30 September, the track offered an early taste of the electronics we explore in our 9/10 review of Dopamine Chamber, the band’s fifth album, released on 16 October through XL Recordings. Where the band’s rise was built on the physical force of five musicians in a room, ‘Tongue’ deliberately distorts that human core: tape speeds shift, Grian Chatten’s voice is pushed through a sampler and the arrangement moves between eerie piano, strings and abrasive guitar.
Fontaines D.C. are treating the studio as an instrument
Guitarist Conor Curley has explained that the band continued from where Romance left off, holding back conventional live-band elements until they were genuinely needed. Bassist Conor Deegan manipulated tape speed to create the track’s loose, pitched bass sound, while Carlos O’Connell processed Chatten’s vocal into something deliberately unfamiliar.
For a band whose early records drew so much power from immediacy, it is a significant shift. This is not Fontaines D.C. abandoning guitars so much as refusing to let the traditional guitar-band setup dictate what a Fontaines D.C. record has to be.
‘Dopamine Chamber’ is beginning to take shape
‘Tongue’ follows August single ‘Marianne’ and arrives after receiving a live debut at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn on 21 September. The accompanying video was directed by John Angus Stewart and filmed in New York.
Dopamine Chamber also contains the band’s first album guest appearance, with Rosalía featuring on ‘Where Is Gone?’. Production comes from James Ford, whose work across alternative and electronic music makes sense for a record apparently intent on blurring the boundary between performance and manipulation.
Fontaines D.C. could easily spend the next decade refining the huge, festival-ready version of themselves that has emerged over the last few years. ‘Tongue’ is encouraging precisely because they appear unwilling to take that comfortable route.
Instead, one of modern guitar music’s biggest bands is using its success to become stranger.
For another developing guitar-band sound, see GANS’ second-album announcement and move towards electronics.
Fontaines D.C. release Dopamine Chamber on 16 October 2026 via XL Recordings.
