Irish duo Driven Snow release their second album, Mother of Christ, today, alongside the album’s title track and lead single of the same name. Driven Snow centres around husband-and-wife duo Kieran McGuinness and Emily Aylmer, whose musical careers grew from their respective roles in Delorentos and Republic of Loose.
Across eleven songs, Mother of Christ explores the changing realities of family life. Written in the margins of busy lives, it is an album rooted in the everyday and shaped by the private world that Kieran and Emily have created together.
When the realities of full-time work and raising a young family began to squeeze out their previously creative lives, the couple resigned themselves to putting music aside. But the desire to make music never disappeared. Late-night recordings of the nursery rhymes and songs they sang to their daughters at bedtime became an unlikely way back in, but didn’t quite fill the gap. Before long, the couple started to write original songs about the new life they were living – the highs, the lows and everything in between.
Under the moniker Driven Snow, they brought together old songs, covers and newly written material to create their 2024 debut album, A Kind Of Dreaming. A handful of live shows, fitted around work, children and babysitters, were met with an encouraging response from audiences and media alike, giving the pair the confidence to keep making music.
For Mother Of Christ, those late-night writing sessions became a regular part of family life, with the experiences of raising three children, maintaining a relationship and finding space for creativity providing the raw material for the songs.
Kieran describes the album as a portrait of the world they have built together:
“This is an album about our own private universe. It’s the sounds of everything that turns and flows within it, and the magic and trauma and joy that lives there. It’s the beautiful, messy, complicated world we’ve built together, and the lives we’ve somehow made inside it.”
The album’s title track, Mother Of Christ, captures that mixture of frustration, release and affection. Built around Emily’s vocals, the song gradually gathers momentum, turning the exasperation of everyday life into something cathartic and uplifting.
Emily explains “The whole song feels like a welcome release. There’s something so comforting and healing about the build to the end of the song… the relief from getting all that pent-up frustration out!”
Mother Of Christ follows the previously released singles Dawn Chorus, Knots, Slowly, Gently and I Wasn’t Looking For You, which have offered a first glimpse into the album.
Recorded and mixed by Tommy McLaughlin (Villagers, Soak, Altan, Ailbhe Reddy) at his Attica Studios base in the wilds of Donegal, and mastered by Richard Dowling at WAV Mastering, the album follows Driven Snow’s acclaimed 2024 debut A Kind Of Dreaming.
To celebrate the release of Mother Of Christ, Driven Snow will embark on a nationwide Irish tour this autumn, bringing the album to audiences across the country.
Stream/purchase the album, Mother of Christ,here now.