Fontaines D.C.'s upcoming Dopamine Chamber promises to be one of the biggest rock albums of the fall, and it could be something special. The band has been debuting new songs live lately, and we've already heard lead single "Marianne." The record has the group's first-ever featured-guest collaborator: Rosalía, who shows up on the as-yet-unheard "Where Is Gone?" Today, Fontaines share the LP's second single, and it's a good one.
Fontaines D.C. debuted their new song "Tongue" at a Brooklyn show last week. It's a slow-rolling churn with deep head-nod trip-hop drums. Bassist Conor Deegan used tape manipulation to slow down and distort his heavy bassline, while guitarist Carlos O’Connell sampled Grian Chatten's vocals and pitched them up, turning it into a duet between Chatten and his own squeaky-voiced self, a trick that people like Prince and the Smiths have employed in the past. Guitarist Conor Curley says, "We continued where Romance left off, leaving the live-band elements until they were really needed."
I'm not really sure what "Tongue" is about, but there's a chemically depressed blurriness to the track. The John Angus Stewart-directed video is all intense, disorienting blue-lit close-ups of the band members. No AI in this one. Check it out below.
Dopamine Chamber is out 10/16 on XL.
