Dopamine Chamber

Fontaines D.C. release their fifth studio album, Dopamine Chamber. Produced by James Ford, it follows 2024's Romance, the album that took the Dublin five-piece from critical favourites to one of the biggest bands in the world.

Dopamine Chamber arrives like a constellation behind undulating sighs of smog: potent balladry, anthemic melodies glinting through the murk. In a world tipping towards collapse, it asks how pleasure mutates amid peril-and what our pursuit of it reveals about us. It's the sound of a band moving decisively away from the guitar language of their early records into something colder, stranger and more synthetic.

Dopamine Chamber takes its title from the idea of a record as a room the listener steps into. "The album itself is a dopamine chamber," says Chatten. "You step inside and we test these different mind- or mood-altering pieces of music on you."