For Those I Love digs deep into Dublin on Carving the Stone
With Carving the Stone, David Balfe—who records as For Those I Love—has created a dense and emotionally raw second album that digs deeper into the political and personal weight of life in contemporary Ireland. Out now via September Recordings, the follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut expands the project’s scope from one of intimate mourning to collective reckoning, without losing its poetic intensity.
Produced by: David Balfe
While Balfe’s first album dealt with the loss of a close friend, Carving the Stone explores the broader grief of a generation trapped in a city—and a system—that is failing them. From Dublin’s housing crisis to the emotional scars of emigration and economic precarity, the album lays bare the pressures of trying to survive and find meaning amid institutional neglect and rising costs of living.
The record was written in fits and starts. Balfe initially retreated to a remote part of Leitrim, hoping isolation would unlock a wave of creativity—but it nearly derailed the entire project. “I went there and wrote every day from morning until night and it was just garbage,” he told NME. “I didn’t think much of it at the time and I know how obnoxiously fake and cliché this sounds but it was on the very last day when all the gear was packed up… I wrote the opening chords to the last track on the album.” That moment of unexpected clarity became a pivot point, and once back home in Dublin, the rest of the album began to emerge.
Musically, the record is sharper and more charged than his debut. It retains Balfe’s blend of spoken word, electronica, and lo-fi samples but turns the dial toward confrontation and critique. Songs like ‘Of The Sorrows’ and ‘Mirror’ examine identity and alienation, while ‘No Scheme’ and ‘The Ox / The Afters’ evoke a landscape of decaying civic infrastructure and personal collapse. Voice clips from punk documentaries and local interviews color the album with grit and realism, making the city of Dublin not just a backdrop, but a character in its own right.
“Absolutely,” Balfe said when asked if Dublin is the main character of the record. “At times there are characters that come to life that are embodiments of Dublin or particular parts of it. It plays the role of one of the main characters throughout the record.”
Even amid frustration with Ireland’s political system, Carving the Stone doesn’t surrender to cynicism. Balfe finds moments of hope in solidarity, friendship, and the creative communities that continue to make meaning in the face of hardship. “I have learned that hope is just something that I have to have,” he said. “It is an essential part of survival for me… When things get this difficult and futures seem so unpredictable, when there’s a dominant lack of stability, finding that hope in other people is more important than ever.”
Standout Songs: ‘No Quiet,’ ‘No Scheme,’ ‘Mirror,’ ‘Of The Sorrows,’ and ‘I Came Back To See The Stone Had Moved.’
Release Date: August 8, 2025
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