Dublin-based poet, producer, and musical agitator David Balfe — better known as For Those I Love — is charging back into the spotlight with the announcement of his much-anticipated second album Carving The Stone, set for release on 8th August via September Recordings.
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For Those I Love (Hugh Quberzk)
Following the raw beauty of lead singles Of The Sorrows and No Scheme, and a thrilling Glastonbury debut that saw him both headline his own stage slot and join Overmono as a special guest, Balfe has unveiled Mirror, perhaps his most unrelenting track to date. Premiered by Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1, the new single arrives with a hypnotic video from director Niall Trask (Jamie T, Fat White Family, Alabaster DePlume) and offers a blistering glimpse into the anger and clarity that define this new chapter.
A pounding, politically charged confessional that marries chest-thumping beats with fiercely literate prose, Mirror sees Balfe wrestle with Dublin’s rapid gentrification and the harsh inequalities ravaging working-class life. “See I’ve been knifed alive by mine,” he declares, “but wined and dined by those on high became the bigger crime to me.” It’s an urgent and scathing reflection of a city – and a generation – strangled by techno-feudalism, where digital overlords and economic hardship reign supreme.
Speaking about the project, Balfe reflects: “There was a time I did feel like I didn’t have anything to say as I have no interest in populating space for the sake of it… Then one day it all just started to come out.”
Balfe’s self-titled debut album won widespread acclaim in 2021, landing Ireland’s prestigious Choice Music Prize and earning #1 album of the year on Album Of The Year, as well as #3 on Metacritic. That album, anchored by the grief-laden single I Have A Love — later immortalised by Overmono in a euphoric remix — focused on the death of a close friend and Balfe’s own emotional reckoning.
But with Carving The Stone, Balfe turns outward. Written in isolation and sculpted from a deluge of observations he hammered into his phone, the album zooms out to confront broader structural decay. From the suffocating cost of rent to the quiet dignity of blue-collar life, the new record is Balfe’s answer to a “cultural death” sweeping through Dublin’s working-class communities. The result is a sweeping meditation that sits somewhere between poetic despair and radical hope.
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For Those I Love (Hugh Quberzk)
Alongside the album announcement, For Those I Love has confirmed an extensive UK and Ireland headline tour — his largest to date — with stops in London, Manchester, Glasgow, and a homecoming show at Dublin’s 3Olympia Theatre. Early demand suggests these intimate, emotionally charged performances will sell out fast.
UK & Ireland Tour Dates:
SEPTEMBER
23rd – The Fleece, Bristol
25th – Islington Assembly Hall, London
28th – Gorilla, Manchester
29th – Room 2, Glasgow
OCTOBER
1st – Limelight 2, Belfast
2nd – Cyprus Ave, Cork
3rd – Mike The Pies, Listowel
5th – Black Box, Galway
6th – 3Olympia Theatre, Dublin
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