Dermot Kennedy has never been one for half-measures, but his new chapter feels like a full-bodied leap into the roots of who he is. The Irish singer-songwriter has just announced his third album The Weight of the Woods, due 27 March via Island Records. It’s a record shaped by home, healing, and the hushed magic of the forest behind his house, and we get our first taste of it with the powerful lead single, “Funeral”, out now.
Premiered as BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record, “Funeral” is a soaring anthem of survival. It blends quiet resilience with emotional fire, held together by Dermot’s signature vocal, the kind that sounds like it’s lived through something and still showed up anyway. Accompanied by a stirring music video starring actor Charlie Rowe and directed by Charlie Sarsfield, the single arrives not as a mourning, but a reckoning. It’s triumphant. It’s raw. And it’s classic Dermot with a refined, stripped-back edge.
That sense of focus carries through the entire The Weight of the Woods project. Written mostly just down the road from his rural Irish home, and partly in Nashville with longtime collaborator Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Lana Del Rey), the album leans into folk roots and a renewed intimacy. “To me, the album is a beautiful homegrown thing with Irish instruments and an Irish story,” Dermot says. “There’s a forest behind my house… it’s a peaceful place where I can escape.”
This is not Dermot trying to reinvent the wheel, it’s him sharpening the tools he already has, and putting vulnerability front and centre. Think haunting melodies, delicate instrumentation, and a voice that cuts through like a confession whispered in a pub corner. “If I get up in a pub with just a guitar or a piano, I’m certain that I can sing to a room full of people,” he says. “It’s where I’m the most comfortable.” That authenticity bleeds through every note.
And he’s not staying quiet for long. Dermot will take this new era on the road for his biggest headline tour to date, including six massive UK arena shows this May and June. From Glasgow’s OVO Hydro to a final night at London’s O2 Arena on 5 June, the tour promises to showcase not only the new material but favourites spanning his decade-defining discography.
It’s been a busy run for Kennedy: stripped-back tours across three continents, a Soccer Aid half-time performance, sharing a bill with Zach Bryan at BST Hyde Park, and even playing Notre Dame Stadium in the US. And if that wasn’t enough, he’s fresh off launching MISNEACH, a global St. Patrick’s Day-timed music festival spotlighting Irish artists, which sold out in both Sydney and Boston.
For someone who started out busking on Dublin streets, Dermot Kennedy’s journey continues to be a masterclass in quiet strength, slow burn success, and deep emotional connection. With The Weight of the Woods, he’s not just releasing an album, he’s planting his flag deeper into the soil of who he is, and inviting us to stand in that forest with him.
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