That night, at their home in Brighton, they played all 40 songs written for the new album to Trevor Dietz one by one. "Marianne" had already been thrown into the "not making the cut" pile — Fontaines D.C. bassist Conor "Deego" Deegan III later recalled on Instagram that after hearing it, Dietz flat out told them they were "absolute lunatics" for wanting to ditch the track. The song stayed, and it's now the lead single off the band's new album, Dopamine Chamber.
"Marianne" officially dropped on Tuesday, August 18, alongside the announcement of the new album: Dopamine Chamber, produced by James Ford, will arrive October 16 via XL Recordings. It's Fontaines D.C.'s first album since the passing of their manager and friend, Trevor Dietz. When the band confirmed his death back in June, they described him as someone who'd "been with us since the beginning of our journey" and called him "the sixth member of the band."
Deegan laid it out plainly in his post: "If it wasn't for Trev, 'Marianne' would never have seen the light of day." He went on to write that once the song was brought back into the album, "the album suddenly became more relevant to our lives now than we ever imagined when we wrote it. This album is dedicated to Trev, to everything he gave us, everything he taught us. Love you forever."
The Last Maida Vale Session — A Track That Never Aired
The band has also released a live version recorded at BBC Maida Vale on July 31 — the studio's final-ever session. Portions of the Grian Chatten-fronted band's performance aired on BBC 6 Music at the time, but "Marianne" didn't make the broadcast cut. Now, alongside the new single, the band has uploaded that footage to YouTube, along with the versions of "Roy's Tune" and "It's Amazing To Be Young" that were recorded the same day and did air.
"Marianne" draws partial inspiration from 2024's thriller series Ripley, touching on themes of avoidance and surrender. NME gave the track a five-star review, calling it "a surreal dream, a dark lullaby, Depeche Mode-esque melancholic synth textures colliding with David Lynch-style widescreen strings."
Dopamine Chamber follows 2024's Mercury Prize-nominated Romance. Before that, the band contributed to the Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man soundtrack and lent a track to War Child's charity album Help(2).
The tour schedule keeps rolling: after their UK summer dates, the band will headline Reading & Leeds and Electric Picnic, then head to North America. Guitarist Carlos O'Connell told NME back in January about the Reading & Leeds set plans, saying he "wanted to dig up some old songs, give the setlist more of that Dogrel flavor," and mentioned he'd been listening to Sonic Youth that morning: "I want to go in that direction, but who knows, anything can happen these days."
