Fontaines D.C. have released single ‘Favourite’ ahead of their upcoming album ‘ROMANCE’, which is set to be released on August 23rd courtesy of XL Recordings.
The accompanying, self-directed music video is a warming cup of nostalgia that reveals a sentimental side to the band with a deeply embedded love for music. Family video tapes blend into hand-held recordings of the grown band (flaunting their new cyberpunk appearance) walking down Madrid’s side streets into shadowed bars and perching on billiard tables. Clips of each band member in adolescence – kicking footballs and holding first guitars – cut to videos of Fontaines today with striking pink hair and scuffed skater shoes, smoke cascading from cigarettes held between gritted teeth.
When asked about the video, Fontaines D.C.’s Conor Deegan stated: “This video is a reminiscing of the past; of each other’s childhoods we didn’t know. To see people we know on an intimate level as adults in the tender ages of childhood, we explore where we came from, and who on some level, still are. I see a lot of familiar faces being pulled, and the antics these lads are undertaking in their videos are so disarming and vulnerable to see. I am at times reminded of boyish mannerisms that they’ve grown out of in the time I’ve known them – and some that they haven’t. I feel their souls there.”
First heard at an intimate gig in New York back in May, album finale ‘Favourite’ perfectly encapsulates the band’s misty-eyed, Beatnik vision for ‘ROMANCE‘. Bassist Deegan described the band’s second album as a story of detachment, the third one a vision of Ireland amidst ‘diaspora’. Instead, the band now set their sights on ‘what else there is to be romantic about’ – in this single’s case the bittersweet passing of time.
Frontman Grian Chatten vocalises the ruthless nature of time and the realisation that coincides with growing old and looking back. Featuring a chorus that will have any fan or casual listener hooked, ‘Favourite’ is mellower than sonic pre-release ‘Starburster’, tilting more towards the genre of Indie Rock with its jangling melody and sun-lit melancholia, akin to that of ‘Roy’s Tune’ from the band’s 2019 album ‘Dogrel’. Chatten described the track as having “this never-ending sound to it, a continuous cycle from euphoria to sadness, two worlds spinning forever”.
As the weather begins to warm and rear its welcomed head, one can easily envision ‘Favourite’ being performed to mass crowds with raised pint glasses in a festival-trodden field. It is a song for the summer, and a warm one at that.
Photo by Simon Wheatley
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