Fontaines D.C. share nostalgic new single ‘Favourite’
Irish indie rockers Fontaines D.C. have returned with a new single, ‘Favourite’, which provides a second glimpse at their upcoming fourth album, Romance.
Abandoning the trip-hop influences and harsh gasps of lead single ‘Starburster’, the band return to a more classic iteration of the genre, to jangly guitars and lyrics steeped in nostalgia. It’s the sonic equivalent of a drive through familiar roads with your hometown friends in the summer breeze and the sudden realisation that it won’t last forever.
While ‘Starburster’ certainly had its softer moments, ‘Favourite’ leans into them entirely. Acoustic strums and homesick twangs open the song in a melody strangely akin to the Gogglebox outro, as vocalist Grian Chatten looks to “claim the dreamer from the dream”. The nostalgia of the instrumentation finds its way into his words, too.
As he sings of dazed 35-hour comedowns and indoor football, he intersperses the track with drawled refrains of the stuttered line, “It’s been a long, a long, a long, a long, a long, long – you were my favourite for a long time.” As Chatten himself suggests, there’s a “never-ending sound” to it. It feels like he would repeat those words forever if we let him.
Calling back to themes explored on ‘Big’ and ‘I Love You’, Fontaines also pair up the changing shape of Ireland with their own growth. “Did you know cities on return are often strange?” Chatten asks, “Every time you blink, you feel it change.” They’re words that could not only be applied to Fontaines’ relationship with Dublin but to anyone who has left a hometown behind and struggles to keep up with its evolution as visits become more and more rare.
There’s a strange sense of artificiality to the nostalgia on ‘Favourite’. It lacks the edge of many Fontaines tracks, with more polished, clean guitars that cast a synthetic sheen on its subject matter. It feels like Fontaines are looking back fondly at something that is already long gone, romanticising something they can no longer reach.
An accompanying music video, directed by Fontaines themselves, adds a little more authenticity to the track. Clips of the band from their youth are spliced with shots of them strolling around Madrid in their new Romance-ready getups. Neon sunnies, full-size pool tables, and shrugged ciggies emphasise the difference between Fontaines then and now, as well as the similarities.
“This video is a reminiscing of the past; of each other’s childhoods we didn’t know,” bassist Conor Deegan explains, “To see people we know at an intimate level as adults in the tender ages of childhood, we explore where we came from, and who on some level, still are.”
Romance is out on August 23rd.
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