From the moment I first heard and saw them in December 2018 at The Good Mixer, I’ve loved Fontaines D.C. This may be their best song yet.

It’s true we had a brief break-up around the time of their second album but we fell back in love with their third one, Skinty Fia. and this, the first tune from their forthcoming fourth, suggests we’re going to be together for ever. Already after two listens I think it’s a career high.

As with all their previous releases, they’ve evolved again. There’s a suffocating sense of anxiety about the warped strings, shuffling beats and Succession-style piano that starts the song.

The inhaler adds the sense of anxiety, enhanced by the audible intakes of breath between Grian’s stream-of-consciousness delivery with a rap-like flow.

No surprise then to learn that Grian wrote it after suffering a panic attack at St Pancras station. The anxiety follows through into the video, which is as frightening as much as it’s funny.

“How I feel? I wanna keel,” he sings. “I wanna bite the phone, I wanna bleed the tone, I wanna see you alone, alone, alone.”
With a background chorus that sends out an ominous warning: “It may feel bad.”

I love it! And I feel sure the new album, Romance, is going to be a great one.