Marching Breath by Draoi

This time around, we weren't looking for the usual pub-brawl anthem. We’ve kicked over enough chairs and shouted ourselves hoarse, and truth be told, sometimes the real fight ain’t out in the street, but right there behind your eyelids. With *Marching Breath*, we dove headfirst into that quieter kind of rebellion. Reckon it’s about finding your proper clan not in some sticky-floored snug, but inside the sprawling, dreaming city of your own mind. It’s a bit of a dream-cycle, yeah, where the usual Draoi grit softens, not into quiet surrender, but into a different kind of fire that glows instead of just burns.

You’ll still hear the mandolin and tin whistle, the bodhrán, and those battered Telecasters, but here they're whispering secrets, chiming like a church bell at dawn rather than clanging like a dropped pint. We built this from aching yearning, the kind that keeps you awake, and let it unfurl into something like steady fulfillment. Those crowd-shouts we’re known for? They became inner choirs, a gentle murmur of solidarity that feels stronger than any roar. The panic, the constant worry, it slows down to just a steady, marching breath. We learned the truest uprising isn’t always a banner waved in a square, but the simple act of rest without giving up.

This album, it’s about memory rolling in like a tide, shame feeling like a locked door you finally find the key for, and hope, well, hope's just a shared REM signal across all those sleeping minds. We kept coming back to one phrase, a proper mantra that became a rally cry for the quiet ones: "Hold the line, close your eyes, we march when we breathe." You’ll hear it woven through, a lullaby fit for radio waves but with the backbone of a terrace chant. It’s a communal whisper, an invitation to find strength in stillness. We took the pub, that sacred space, and imagined it as a cathedral of hush for the track "Still Cathedral," letting a lone voice blossom into a whole people's choir, proving that belonging doesn’t need noise to be real. This isn't just a record; it’s the sound of finding sanctuaries where you least expect them, expanding what Draoi can be, beyond the Guinness-stained floors and into the quiet strength we all carry. It's an Irish folk punk album, sure, but it’s one for the soul, for anyone who’s ever had to fight their battles while the world slept.

We've been raising hell across Ireland since our first gig ended in a bar fight and three broken strings. Our songs? Pure gutters-to-glory stuff—rebellion, heartbreak, and whiskey-soaked nights that blur into dawn. Punk spirit meets ancient melodies, delivered with spit and fire. Pure madness live.