Rosalia sings on Where Is Gone?, the Fontaines D.C. album's only guest spot

The fifth Fontaines D.C. album has a running order, and one line in it is a first. Dopamine Chamber arrives on 16 October with eleven songs, and the eighth is Where Is Gone?, a duet with Rosalia. NME reports it is the first time the Dublin band have given a track over to a guest vocalist, despite Grian Chatten having talked for years about wanting to work with Lana Del Rey.

The rest of the list is partly familiar. Lead single Marianne sits second, and Six Shot Morning and Happy For You, both already played live, open and sit fourth. The full sequence runs Six Shot Morning, Marianne, Mimesis, Happy For You, Demolition, Tongue, One Man, Where Is Gone?, You Miss Me, Japan and Intimate.

Chatten has described the album as a device rather than a set of songs. He said the album itself is a dopamine chamber, that a listener steps inside it, and that the band test different mood-altering pieces of music on them. The sonic direction NME reports is darker and more synthetic than before.

He has also put a number on how the mood has shifted. Chatten reckons the 2024 album Romance was around 60% human and 40% corrupted by automation and lost feeling, and that this one feels 60% corrupted, with the mask wearing the face a little more. He says he left the hope out deliberately because the record needed to read as a warning.

The theme the band keep circling is place. Bassist Conor Deegan pointed out that their albums have always questioned where they are: first Dublin, then being away from Dublin, then looking for romance elsewhere, and on this record the question became where you escape to at all. Chatten went to Venice, Vienna and Sicily looking for the answer in lyrics.

The record follows a heavy year of other people's projects. The band contributed to the Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man soundtrack and to the War Child compilation Help(2), and they headlined both Reading & Leeds and Electric Picnic over the summer.

The touring plan is already set out past the release. A UK and European arena run follows the album, with stadium and outdoor dates in 2027 alongside Little Simz and Viagra Boys, which is a step up in room size from the theatres the band were playing two albums ago.

Dopamine Chamber is on the release calendar for October. Our earlier indie coverage includes the album announcement itself and the single Marianne.