ALBUM REVIEW: The Scratch – ‘Pull Like A Dog’

The multitudes of success for The Scratch are worth examining, as they’ve come about in a rather uncommon way. Recent years have proven that a ‘rock-meets-X’ style will tend to pay dividends on the rock side, but not necessarily the scene that comprises the other 50%. The Scratch, though, have arguably become just as big a deal in folk as in anything heavier. They already had James Vincent McMorrow produce 2023’s Mind Yourself, a less-than-orthodox choice for a band who make no bones about their metal influences. Especially more recently, The Scratch are likely in a field of one when it comes to acts who’ve opened for The Wolfe Tones and Dermot Kennedy, and who’d treat the boards at Download and, this year, Bloodstock.

Pull Like A Dog—a neologistic phrase coined by Irish Olympic rowers Gary and Paul O’Donovan—almost seems custom-built to apply to The Scratch. To push forth and persevere is one thing; to articulate it in such a unique, hitherto unseen way is another. Even compared to Mind Yourself, this is a wildly new step to take. Apparently System Of A Down is where this outing’s metal lode stems from, a far-cry from the more classic (and suitably Irish) impulses of Thin Lizzy. From there, The Scratch do, indeed, pull like a dog—they make an album unlike anything else you’ll probably hear this year.

Such hyperbole often feels wheel out for its own sake, so let’s qualify it—can you, in 2026, see yourself listening to another full body of work released into a nominally heavy space that use a cajón as a primary source of percussion? Yeah, probably not, because it seems ludicrous. The Scratch have got it, though, as if that’s their form-fitting window into the wackiness of SOAD-style music that’s still true to them. Daniel Lang is smackin’ that box like there’s no tomorrow on the opening title track, where the hurried tempo and brusque breakdown really do leave it feeling like a metal song transposed to folk.

From there, Pull Like A Dog opens out into even more new permutations of The Scratch’s sound. Wisely, though, Celtic folk is the limiter here, not the means by which to go off the rails that so many would interpret it as. Gladrags’ blocked groove would be full nu-metal if it weren’t for how the added texture cuts it to size and makes it that much more individual. Later on, the jittery twangs and percussive thuds across Horsefly perfectly temper its sizzle in the back, coalescing for a solo that’s never too big or flashy for the song containing it. It’s all done in a way where calling it a ‘fusion’ almost reads as underselling. The Scratch are playing with two separate palettes here, not only keeping them that way but getting the exact best results when they do interact.

It doesn’t seem that easy, or like it would come naturally to anyone else. Even The Scratch themselves have the occasional wobble with it, specifically Mother Of God whose slow burn is a bit too unsatisfying when its minutes’ worth of tension is loosed. That’s about it, though; Pull Like A Dog losing a thread is not a common occurrence at all. And it’s a testament to how distinct The Scratch’s compositional instincts are. More often than not, this isn’t a big blowout of an album, but one that’s knowingly dour and dirgelike. Mother Of God might slip a little with that, but the same can’t be said for how Pullin’ Teeth navigates its own filth, or how Crack and I Hope All Is Forgiven venture into the bleak wilderness, the latter using it as a means to confront death itself. Even Roses N Poses, whose punching melody bears more than a passing likeness to the Dropkick Murphys’ I’m Shipping Up To Boston, has enough of a mean streak about it.

All of that contributes to how weird Pull Like A Dog really is. At no point does it ever feel settled, or as though The Scratch are getting cosy in their two tiers of success. If anything, they appear to want to test how far they can go. The similarities to any current rock high-flyer are few and far between; for Celtic folk, it’s basically alien. But for a band like The Scratch—hard-nosed and weather-beaten, with a clear disinterest in the ‘conventional’—would you expect anything different? Pull Like A Dog isn’t a great album just for its songs, but for what it represents. The step forward taken is near-incalculable in distance, and yet The Scratch are just as they’ve always been. That’s probably what’s doing the most work for them.

For fans of: BIG SPECIAL, Deadletter, SPRINTS

‘Pull Like A Dog’ by The Scratch is released on 13th March on Music For Nations / Sony Music Ireland.

Words by Luke Nuttall