Delving into Kingfishr's Debut Album "Halcyon"


Releasing music since 2022, Irish folk band Kingfishr has finally released their first studio album, "Halcyon," on August 22, 2025. Featuring their hit song Killeagh as well as their first studio release, Flowers-Fire, Halcyon has it all. From anthems of love and belonging to reminiscing about the past, Kingfishr does it all, and they do it well.
On top of nine songs released over the past three years, Halcyon features seven brand new songs, two of which were released as singles ramping up to the Album drop.
Man On The Moon marks the first song on the album. The song was released earlier this year and deals with the innate urge to follow your heart and achieve your dreams, as well as what it might mean to betray yourself by not doing so. Following this, 21, one of their new releases, acts as an ode to times past, as well as an appeal to live life fully, with no regrets. 21 has a distinctly hopeful tone to it, which, upon listening, makes you want to drop everything and start focusing on what you love.
That very specific feeling ignited by a lot of Kingfishr's music might be traced back to the band's own story. After finishing their degrees, Eddie, Fitz, and McGoo got jobs, only to realize, as so many before them, that it wasn't for them. Instead, they started pursuing music, and to their luck (and ours), people were able to resonate with their lyricism and sound. Now, Kingfishr has garnered an audience of almost 2 million monthly listeners on Spotify, which is growing steadily, and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Following Gloria and I Cried, I Wept is another album-specific release, marking number 5 on the tracklist. As Eddie revealed at a recent gig in Hamburg, Next To Me was written about his girlfriend, whom he "loves very much." As the lyrics go:
Next to me, she's a rose that never dies,
and
When my days have come to an end, oh, all that I can prove is that the point of me was you,
It is not hard to see what might have inspired these lyrics.
Diamonds & Roses summarizes the "death of celebrity" in the 21st century, as Eddie put it in a prior interview with The Unseen. The song is followed by Flowers-Fire, a reworked version of Caroline, and Killeagh, a song that has since become a staple anthem for many hurling games in their home county of Cork.
Following these three fan favorites is another new release: Ways To Change. Ways To Change introduces a slightly different sound to the album. While it still features the same heartfelt lyrics and Eddie's distinctive vocal, the song's production is a lot beat-heavier than what we've heard from Kingfishr so far. On the other hand, Blue Skies leans back into the more folk-inspired, instrumental side of the band that so many have come to love over the years.
Before the grand finale, Shot In The Dark, first released in 2023, delves back into the band's origin, and the literal shot in the dark they had to take to get where they are now:
If it all falls apart, at least we enjoyed it.
The album closes off with two brand new songs: Someday and Schooldays. Someday features lyrics that seem to hit especially hard these days:
Someday, flags won't fly; they'll all be buried in the ground where they belong. Someday, well, the guns won't ring, we'll all wonder where the world went wrong.
Schooldays has an almost bittersweet sound to it, while still perfectly wrapping up the experience of Halcyon. It manages to feature the highs and lows of the album, grief and hope standing side by side.
Kingfishr has an innate ability to trigger something deep within your soul with their music, something hopeful and quiet that you can't quite put your finger on. Something beautiful nonetheless. The guys themselves shared that Halcyon is the accumulation of three years' work, though it doesn't feel like it. Kingfishr is definitely a band to keep an eye out for in the future; it is not a question of if they'll top themselves, but rather when.
LISTEN TO THE WHOLE ALBUM HERE:
Care to find out what Kingfishr had to share about their Debut Album? Read our interview here:
"If It All Falls Apart, At Least We Enjoyed It": An Evening With Kingfishr in Berlin
Photo Credit: Kingfishr
WRITTEN BY

Kira
As a little girl, my biggest dream was to stand on a stage and share my songs with people who can relate. It turns out that that’s a lot harder than it seemed. Still, there is a similarly electric feeling in the crowd, spending the better half of the evening with like-minded people. People who you might not know or ever see again, that don’t seem so much like strangers for those few hours you spend with an artist, their fans, and the music. To me, the capacity of music to make fans connect despite who they are is the most intriguing and inspiring phenomenon of all, and my hope is to share it with people as best I can.