Make no mistake - the mighty Fontaines DC are back. The former DIY cover stars have just confirmed that they’ll be releasing their fifth studio album, ‘Dopamine Chamber’, on 16th October via XL Recordings, and have also shared a new track - ‘Marianne’ - to mark the occasion.

The follow up to 2024’s pink and green triumph ‘Romance’, ‘Dopamine Chamber’ promises to consider notions of escapism and our relentless pursuit of it, taking in the brain-frying ubiquity of AI, environmental crisis, and political violence; the result, frontman Grian Chatten has explained, is an LP that lands “like a catastrophic warning”. 

Explaining more about the ideas behind ‘Dopamine Chamber’, he reflects: “I felt it would be more powerful to leave the hope out and reflect the ugliness honestly. 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.” 

“There’s a poignant sense of us being on the brink of some other kind of form of humanity, or non-humanity,” he summarises.