“Close your eyes and pull like a dog,” was the answer once given by Irish Olympic rowers Gary and Paul O’Donovan in a 2016 interview, when asked to describe their game plan for an upcoming race. The phrase – previously non-existent – caught on and has since become cultural shorthand for the straightforward tenacity required to do pretty much anything.
For Dublin-based four-piece The Scratch, the phrase came to represent a collective headspace going into their forthcoming album – titled Pull Like A Dog, scheduled for release on 6th March 2026 via Sony Music Ireland. “It’s just another way of saying ‘send it’ and see what happens,” Daniel “Lango” Lang (cajón, percussion, lead vocals) explains. “It’s a motivating phrase we needed, at the time, to inspire a bit of gusto.”
When a video of the band playing at the Rory Gallagher International Festival in Ballyshannon went viral in 2017, it brought opportunities for The Scratch to become a much bigger project than they initially envisaged. Signed to Sony Music Ireland, The Scratch’s second album Mind Yourself (2023) debuted at #1 on the Irish Vinyl Charts, #3 on the IRMA Weekly Album Chart, was nominated for Irish Album of the Year at The Choice Music Prize, plus an appearance on Ireland’s #1 TV show The Late Late Show. Additionally, the band has garnered support from the likes of BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6, plus most recently, their music featured in Netflix’s brand-new drama series House of Guinness, from Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.
In a league of their own when it comes to live performances, the high-voltage folk-metal band have been busy touring the past few months. From hitting the road with the Dropkick Murphys across the US, packing-out festival sets across Europe, supporting Dermot Kennedy in Australia and performing at the UK’s Download Festival, the band are showing no signs of slowing down.
The band’s third album Pull Like A Dog is a refinement of the acoustic/electric, folk/metal fusion they laid out on Mind Yourself, resulting in the band’s most polished, high-octane album to date. “As a band, this feels like a new beginning,” says Conor (guitar, backing vocals). “I think the changes we’ve faced have given us a lot of room to grow, maybe into roles we felt were off limits before. Openness, perseverance, and positivity – this album embodies all of that.”
The Scratch is Conor Dockery, Cathal McKenna, Daniel Lang, and Gary Regan.
