CARLOS O'CONNELL ISN'T MERELY EXCITED about the release of Fontaines DC's new single. He's "giddy for it. I'm giddy", he emphasises, reclining in his dressing gown in a sunlit corner of his north London home. His attire is far from rock star loucheness: it's 9am and the guitarist has already been up for hours with his one-year-old daughter. "There's no time to get ready!" His effusiveness doesn't feel like a stretch: the prospect of any new material from the celebrated Dublin band is thrilling enough; the fact that Starburster marks a wholly unexpected sidestep into antic, irreverent, Korninspired nu-metal is enough to make any interested parties come over slightly light-headed.
Yet later that afternoon, Fontaines frontman Grian Chatten is finding it difficult to muster the same enthusiasm. Perhaps because he can't quite bring himself to listen to the thing-or, in fact, any of the band's forthcoming fourth album, Romance. He tells me this from a more stereotypical hot seat, a characterfully cluttered old-school pub in Camden Town, although he's not cleaving to rock cliche, either. We are on the Diet Cokes and the only pharmaceuticals around are his ADHD medication.
There are four months until Romance is released in August: might he give it a spin in the meantime? "I'm considering it," he says, seriously. "Which is more than I could have said for any album we've done before."
Those previous albums won the band a Brit award, Grammy and Mercury prize nominations and, in the case of 2022's Skinty Fia, a place at the top of the UK charts. They also put the five-piece in the running for best rock band in the world, though they have little competition for the title.
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