Photo Credit: Nicole Ditt

Irish rock band Fontaines D.C. released Dopamine Chamber, their fifth studio album yesterday, October 16th. The release of this highly anticipated album came with a single release and new music video for the album’s penultimate track, “Japan.” The video can be found on the band’s YouTube channel.

The video, directed by BAFTA-winning filmmaker and previous Fontaines D.C. collaborator Luna Carmoon, stars Angèle Metzger, Charlie Heaton and Sean Black. It opens with a girl and an older man in a mall. After a moment of dialogue from the man, the audio cuts out before the song begins with a dreamy and mellow atmosphere, with lyrics talking about a woman and her boyfriend in Japan. The woman in the video takes notice of another man, and when the two cross another in an escalator, they open their shirt collars to reveal an injury on the woman’s collar. The video (as well as the lyrics) appear to allude to an abusive and unhealthy relationship – the woman appears to be unsafe living under the older man and longs for the younger one. Eventually, it appears she takes care of the older man in order to run away to be with the young man. At one point, the two of them embrace in the backyard, repeating to one another the line from the song “why’d you go and make it real?” Taken with the lyrics of the song – which themselves speak of a detached and unhealthy relationship – the video could equally be portraying the woman leaving such an abusive  relationship for a better one, or as part of a cycle of toxic relationships used just as an “escape” from sorrows.

The follow-up to 2024’s Romance, Dopamine Chamber released yesterday with a total of 11 tracks and marked the fifth studio album by the band. It continues the band’s exploration into more alternative rock styles following the previous release of Romance.