When you had been questioning whether or not Fontaines D.C. guitarist Conor Curley was the kind of musician who sees guitars as instruments and nothing extra, disabuse your self of that notion. As we chat to the Irishman concerning the band’s new album, Romance, he casually throws in that he’s the kind of one that’s taken lots of of pictures of his guitars, a choose few of which make it onto Instagram. “Some individuals take pictures of their canines, I take pictures of my guitar,” he shrugs. Yep, he’s One Of Us.

And he’s had loads of alternatives to take pictures of his gear in equity. Since Fontaines D.C. burst onto the scene to rave critiques of 2019’s debut, Dogrel, their star has continued to rise, all whereas the band confounded expectations and refused to relaxation on their laurels.

They adopted Dogrel with a Grammy nomination for his or her brooding second LP, A Hero’s Demise. Then in 2022 they blitzed the sector with Skinty Fia – a craving, bittersweet homage to Eire that snagged the highest spot in each the UK and Eire, and showcased a band blossoming right into a uncommon inventive pressure.

So, how do you high that? Effectively, you lean into the bands that impressed you in high-school – particularly Korn, Deftones and Outkast – and use it to craft 11 tracks of genre-defying brilliance that’s Romance, after all.

For an album that celebrates Fontaines’ brotherhood, it was fashioned throughout a interval the place they went their separate methods. Following a marathon US and Mexico tour with Arctic Monkeys in 2023, the band went in several instructions – in some circumstances actually. Vocalist Grian Chatten headed to Los Angeles, guitarist Carlos O’Connell returned to Castile-La Mancha in Spain, and bassist Conor Deegan headed to Paris.

By the point the band – rounded out by Curley and drummer Tom Coll – reconvened in London, they had been hungry to make one thing new, but in addition one thing that absolutely mirrored the music that every member liked to hearken to: from hip-hop and electroclash, to metallic and pop.

A month collectively in England’s capital gave Fontaines D.C. ample time to jot down, adopted by three weeks of pre-production in a North London studio, and a month in a studio-chateau close to Paris.

The outcomes are spectacular. Listening to Chatten sucking in air and heaving out an pressing torrent of lyrics on the panic-attack-inspired Starburster is harking back to the near-hyperventilating supply of Korn’s Jonathan Davis in his 90s pomp, and proof that the band are tacking firmly in direction of the unknown.

Unusual Fiction

Romance conjures up a universe by which the immensity of affection and romance coexists with the tragedy and dying that exist on the periphery of our lives. Within the face of every little thing falling aside, love is redemption.

“This file is our first journey into fiction,” Curley displays on Romance’s thematic bedrock. “A giant affect is cinema, and the Danish movie collection The Pusher, which is just like the Danish Trainspotting. We needed these sounds to be much less reflective of the previous, and extra impressed by trendy bands. So, we had been developing with this fictional, futuristic place referred to as Romance to deliver us extra into the current as an alternative of the late 80s, early 90s influences of the previous.”

Romance is an epic, gothic sprawl that feels a lot larger than the 11 tracks it journeys by way of, fulfilling its transient to take us on a tour by way of the band’s diversified musical influences. One standout comes in direction of the tip of the album. Because the temper winds down, Sundowner arrives as a woozy, psyched-out, multi-harmony gradual jam that thrums to a melancholic, late afternoon, reflective vibe.

It sounds large, however Curley masterminded it from a closet-sized studio (“a shoebox” he claims) he rents in London.

“I wrote the entire music and vocals for that one, and the entire drum elements and stuff,” he confirms. “After I introduced it to the band it was much more chaotic, and it’s form of pared all the way down to a bit extra of a band track. Initially, it was loads of very bizarre drum machines, and the guitars had been actually industrial, like 9 Inch Nails.”

The layered harmonies and complementary melodies resulted from Curley’s immersion in shoegaze, however the total vibe owes a debt to a different 90s staple.

“I listened to loads of journey hop, that scene of people who find themselves simply taking music from all these totally different genres and pairing it into one thing new,” he provides. “I simply thought that must be the objective for each form of artist. So, that was what I used to be attempting to do, to attempt to take all these various things from totally different genres and place them within the one track.”

Thoughts The Hole

In the midst of final 12 months, the band had skilled a niche of their schedule. Chatten used the time to make his well-received solo debut Chaos For The Fly. Curley squirrelled away in his London studio, writing alone, with associates, and with Coll, who had the same, separate studio down the corridor from Curley on the time. The 2 now share an even bigger studio area in the identical venue.

“I used to be working with out the brand new album in thoughts, actually,” he explains. “I knew we’d must do it will definitely, however I used to be simply form of engaged on stuff, both for associates, or I used to be writing with Tom and [guitarist] Carlos [O’Connell] as properly.”

After Chatten’s album was launched in July, the band reconvened.

“We began sharing songs and began seeing the place Romance was ending up, after which we jumped straight into writing after the American tour with the Arctic Monkeys on the finish of final 12 months,” he displays. “Then we began recording our stuff, so it was a gradual construct into a really fast course of, .”

That fast course of was aided by producer James Ford, celebrated for his work with Arctic Monkeys, Foals and Depeche Mode. It’s the primary of the Fontaines D.C. albums to be produced by somebody aside from Dan Carey.

“Dan’s an unimaginable producer, however we’re enthusiastic about altering it up for the fourth album,” Curley enthuses. “The primary three albums appeared like a trilogy. They’d the same manufacturing model that was suited to the way in which we had been writing and dealing. We needed to work with totally different producers to see how they might hear what we had been engaged on and interpret it in another way to what we’d carried out earlier than.”

Two Of A Type

4 albums in, Curley and O’Connell have refined their two-guitars-in-a-band relationship from the early days of blasting by way of the audio system with amped up, equally highly effective lead and rhythm assaults.

“From changing into higher writers, we all know one another’s strengths a bit extra, and we are able to depend on one another with out as a lot route,” Curley displays. “We might belief one another. There are totally different elements on this file the place I can hear my half, and his elements. Carlos is a eager melodic participant, and his use of refrain is form of like that 90s Smashing Pumpkins model. I do know he can try this, and I get actually excited after I hear him making stuff up. Vice versa, if he wanted one thing extra 80s various, kinda cowboy guitar line, then he’d come to me for that.”

That simple rapport extends to the entire band, in equity, and it’s in beneficiant proof on Romance. A number of the album displays songs that resulted from improvised jams at rehearsal and soundchecks.

“We are able to jam an concept for half an hour and loads of songs come from us rehearsing or soundchecking, riffing for 30 minutes whereas the sound man is recording it,” says Curley. “We had been listening again, determining the place the intertwining guitar elements work, then studying what we’d been doing.”

From a shortlist of 25 songs and demos, the band pared it all the way down to 13 – with not repeating themselves and showcasing the total gamut of their creativity the order of the day.

“There are two songs we reduce from the file, solely as a result of the sonics had been already represented,” he says. “All of our information have that variation between more durable materials to softer ballads. That’s the proper mixture of a file for us.”

What Ought to Be

The sound of Skinty Fia for Curley was pushed by a Fylde 12-string that the guitarist borrowed from Richard Hawley, however this time round issues are far more six-string targeted, and particularly Fender guitars.

“Fenders have all the time simply had that look; that’s what a guitar must be,” he explains. “After I obtained my first correct Mexican Telecaster, there was an enormous distinction between that and the couple of Epiphones I’d had as a child. The directness and clearness of Fender… that’s what a guitar ought to sound like.”

Whereas he’s been a fan of assorted Fenders each new and outdated up up to now – from a 60s Coronado to a Johnny Marr Jag, and varied Teles and Mustangs – Romance is a file powered “solely” by a Jazzmaster.

“I obtained it whereas touring for Skinty Fia,” he explains. “It’s the American Skilled collection, blue, matching headstock. As a result of we had been going for lots of these extra distorted sounds on this, the Jazzmaster supplied extra of that skill to make use of overdrives and stack fuzzes, and stuff like that.”

Pedals have all the time been an enormous a part of Curley’s sound, however this time round it was an opportunity for him to shift expectations a bit of.

“For Right here’s The Factor, it has this massive fuzz line, so I had the Keeley Loomer pedal blended in with some Boss Refrain, which added a trumpet-y sound, and the Refrain makes it sound a bit alien as properly,” he displays. “I used little or no reverb on guitar for this album as a result of I used to be leaning on it a lot up to now, and this time I needed issues to sound a bit nearer to your ear, and extra dry.”

In a couple of weeks, Fontaines D.C. will head out on the highway for a large US tour, adopted by Europe, the UK, and Eire. Of all the numerous tracks Curley is hungry to carry out for audiences, there’s one which he’s already chomping on the bit to check out in a dwell area.

“Demise Kink will turn out to be one of many essential ones of the set,” he says. “It jogs my memory of the Pixies, and I’m actually pleased with how that track turned out. It got here from a chord development I wrote in my home one evening, and it has some timing tips that make it actually addictive to play.”

Grizzled, angular and punctured by wails of guitar and noodling, wiry rhythm elements, Demise Kink is one other stylistic shift on an album that makes a behavior of it. Like a lot of Romance, it’s begging to be heard dwell and loud – and that’s precisely what we’re going to get.

Romance is out 23 August on XL Recordings