It’s the humid crush of mid August, every week earlier than the discharge of Fontaines’ fourth album, Romance, and I’ve come to fulfill the band in Charleville-Mézières, a small city that sits between France’s Champagne area and the Belgian border. They’re on the town for Le Cabaret Vert, a competition they first performed again in 2018; three appearances right here and as many albums later, they’re now close to the highest of the invoice.
This specific efficiency comes in the midst of a seismic wave that has carried the band from cult standing—they’re your favourite artist’s favourite artist—to the cusp of one thing a lot greater. After a slow-burn ascent (a Grammy nomination in 2021, a BRIT award in 2023), Fontaines are in all places: in Andrea Arnold’s movie Chicken, launched this month, wherein Barry Keoghan sings their monitor “A Hero’s Dying” menacingly; on Jimmy Fallon, launching “Starburster,” the primary single for the album; on the cowl shoot for this concern, at which Paul Mescal stated Fontaines have been all he was listening to proper now. (“They get into your mind and by no means actually depart,” Mescal instructed GQ.)
It appears like that success is cresting proper at this very second, as they make a straggled arrival on the riverbank in Charleville-Mézières, wearing a riot of leopard print, neon sun shades, and Adidas tracksuits. Coll and guitarist Carlos O’Connell first, then Chatten, bassist Conor Deegan III (“Deego,” at all times), and Curley mentioning the rear.
Fontaines’ ascent is all of the extra unlikely coming because it does at a time when the all-male guitar band looks as if an endangered species. Thus far, not a single band has topped the Billboard Sizzling 100 this yr. In our period of outsized pop personalities, earnest nation boys, and culture-eating rap beefs, indie rock bands really feel like relics from one other decade. The few which have discovered relevance have performed so by making an attempt to interrupt the mildew of their predecessors (Boygenius) or by their wry, parodic method (the 1975). Fontaines have thrived as one thing else fully: a livid punk-rock outfit taking goal at society’s ills, by way of Chatten’s snarling shout-spoken vocals, ragged guitar chords, and the thunderclap of Coll’s driving drums.
Whilst Fontaines are lastly getting their flowers, they’re already within the midst of one other rise up. For the brand new album, Romance, the band went to battle with the picture of themselves, pushing a brand new, softer sound, one which aches with its frustrations and ache relatively than yelling it in your face. On the identical time, the band have undergone a radical makeover, eschewing their earlier go-tos of cardigans, denims, and leather-based jackets for outfits that embody skirts and knee-high socks, in addition to slicked hair within the type of Pure Born Killers.
