Fontaines DC review – Dublin rockers strike out into the stratosphere

Pryzm, Kingston upon Thames
Rolling out new album Romance and an expansive change of direction, the band range from wistful to brutal, Depeche Mode to Pixies in a small-scale gig of epic intensity

First, disorientation; then, redefinition. Lime green and white strobe lights stutter across five busy silhouettes, slicing their movements into nanosecond jump cuts. Then a deep blast of synth bass drives home the point that Fontaines DC – a band once so defined by their home city that “Dublin City” is engraved into their name – may no longer be the Irish literary post-punk rabble-rousers that fans have grown to know over the past five years. Fontaines are still indelibly tinged with emerald, but now it’s a more lurid, palate-stripping shade, one not a million miles from pop maven Charli XCX’s brat green.

This moody assault on the senses resolves into Romance, the title track of Fontaines DC’s fourth album, released days earlier. Low-slung and menacing, it sounds a little like Depeche Mode – a kinship underlined by singer Grian Chatten’s doomy intonation (“Into the darkness again,” he sings). Post-punk to stadium goth is no vast leap, but it’s worth noting that Romance producer James Ford’s lengthy CV includes not only Arctic Monkeys – the band to whom Fontaines DC are most often compared in terms of positioning – but Depeche Mode’s most recent work.

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