Say hello to ‘Romance’, Fontaines D.C.’s most ambitious record to date. Its 11 tracks bring together the ideas that have matured between the band members – Grian Chatten (vocals), Carlos O’Connell (guitar), Conor Curley (guitar), Conor Deegan (bass) and Tom Coll (drums) – since they released ‘Skinty Fia’ in 2022. These ideas crystallised while touring the US and Mexico with the Arctic Monkeys, where the five band members shared music and found a connection with artists who built their own creative worlds: the attitude and aesthetics of artists like Shygirl and Sega Bodega, the brash sound palette of hip hop and heavy metal, Mos Def, A$AP Ferg, OutKast and Korn. They have had time off to get a better idea of what their future music might be like: O’Connell went to La Mancha in Spain and became a father, Chatten spent time in Los Angeles and Deegan in Paris. They put down deeper roots in London. Each member spent time pushing their own boundaries, experimenting with riffs, chord progressions and distant textural references, but with no intention of recording an album. After finishing the US tour in the autumn of 2023, they spent a month writing together again, three weeks of pre-production in a north London studio and a month in a chateau near Paris, sleeping among the studio equipment, completely immersed. This Is Pop? today’s song of the day is here for you.