Fontaines DC have released a new single, It’s Amazing to be Young – their first since their 2024 album Romance – with a new music video directed by repeat collaborator Luna Carmoon. The promo follows an intense romance between two characters, blending lightly humorous moments, youthful optimism and dramatic encounters.

The video completes a coming-of-age trilogy directed by Carmoon that began with Here’s The Thing, which burrowed deep into the anxieties and complexities of girlhood through the lens of Irish dancing and classic horror films. This was followed up by In The Modern World starring House of the Dragon’s Ewan Mitchell, which expressed angst in the controlled environment of carjitsu – a sport involving martial arts inside the confines of a car.

Eager viewers will notice the main characters in those two videos are the smitten protagonists in the new video, which is filled with other recurring motifs, from the characters’ pets – a spider and a snake – to the inclusion of a surreal set piece. Like the previous videos, Carmoon riffs on film history – this time drawing on Santa Sangre, a psychological horror from 1989 following a circus performer’s escape from an institution.

“I feel like we’re living in this weird time where romantic love is being pushed to the side, and sex and love is unvirtuous and no longer what people want to see,” explains Carmoon, who wrote the treatment in a matter of days. “I don’t believe that at all. I love that these two people have fallen in love with themselves, and I wanted to see them fall in love with each other.” 

According to bassist Conor Deegan III (Deego), the song was written shortly after the birth of guitarist Carlos O’Connell’s child. “It sounded more like a lullaby or a music box then, but with the same lyric – ‘it’s amazing to be young’. The feeling of hope a child can give is profound and moving, especially for young men like us. That sense of wanting to create a world for them to grow up in happily.

“It’s a feeling that fights against the cynicism that can often overtake us in the modern world. So we wanted to declare which side we were on – it really is amazing to be young. We are still free, and want to make that feeling spread. We want to protect it for the others around us, and maybe in doing that, can also help protect it for ourselves.”

As well as bringing together the two characters, the new video serves as the connective tissue between the band’s 2024 album Romance – which the songs for the first two videos came off – and their as-yet unannounced next chapter. This also goes for the design language they had built around Romance, which carries through in the acid green touches on the 7-inch vinyl featuring the new single and a fresh B-side, Before You I Just Forget.

The release kicks off a global run of tour dates and festival appearances, beginning in Japan and culminating in Europe in the summer.

@lunacarmoon