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) allude to an abusive and unhealthy relationship – the woman longs for the younger man and seems to be subject to abuse from the older one. Eventually, it appears she kills the older man to get with the younger man. At one point, the two embrace in the backyard, repeating the line from the song “why’d you go and make it real?”

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.