Deriving their name from the Gaelic word for “heartache,” “vexation of spirit,” County Cork-based duo Crá Croí — RG (songwriting, production, mixing and mastering) and CD (vocals and visuals) — have employed a fiercely DIY ethos while establishing a sound that meshes elements of 1980s New Wave, post-punk and goth, featuring melancholic synths, dark melodies, angular guitars and sharp, hook-driven vocals. 

The Irish duo’s work explores themes of nihilism, love and destruction, dystopian collapsed and nuclear annihilation, often wrapped in irony and paired with post-apocalyptic metaphors. 

The Cork-based duo’s self-produced, 12-song, full-length debut, Tá brón orm is slated for release during the second half of 2026. Deriving its title from the Irish phrase for “sadness” or “sorrow is on me,” the duo’s debut effort will feature the previously released “Radiation Romance,” a track that seemingly channeled  She Wants Revenge and Interpol, and “Fires At Dawn,” the album’s second and latest single.

Continuing a run of broodingly cinematic tunes, “Fires At Dawn” features CD’s Paul Banks–like vocal paired with eerily atmospheric synths, a relentless motor groove, bursts of squiggling and shimmering reverb-soaked guitars and a punchy yet anthemic hook and chorus. Sonically nodding at Joy Division and Antics-era Interpol, “Fires At Dawn” “captures the moment between ruin and renewal,” the duo explain. It’s “a hymn for the haunted and anthem for survival.” They add that the lyrics trace a world where “‘the poets of the chaos’ rise from the ashes, chasing embers just to feel the fire thrive.”

The accompanying video was created by the band’s RG using stock footage and iMovie, and features visuals of the sun in space, with its fires endlessly churning, the Aurora Borealis and flames, emphasizing the song’s themes of destruction, purity and renewal.