Dryadic opens the door on their new single “Ghosts,” and you immediately feel a change in the room’s pressure. The piano chords that introduce the piece, played by frontwoman Zora McDonald, don’t twinkle; they place stones, one by one, creating a path through a grey landscape. Her voice follows, not as a guide trying to cheer you on, but as a determined companion walking that same path, candidly mapping out the difficult terrain of an inner world crowded with unwelcome presences.
This is a song about an argument, the most exhausting kind—the one you have with a voice in your head that isn’t even yours. The track masterfully captures the peculiar weight of inherited trauma, of carrying someone else’s shame until it feels like your own. It reminds me of finding a beloved book from your childhood, only to see its margins filled with the anxious, judgmental handwriting of a stranger you’re related to. Here, Aly Rainey’s fiddle is a high, thin thread of lament weaving through the gloom, while George Pearson’s bowed double bass moans like the timbers of an old house finally giving into its own history.
But this isn’t a song of submission. It builds, anchored by the steadying heartbeat of Emma’s drums, into a fierce and clear-eyed rejection. The line “I’m the one that will put these ghosts to bed” lands not as a vengeful shout but as a statement of profound, bone-weary fact. It’s the sound of someone sweeping out a room that has been locked for a generation, choosing to let the sunlight in, however jarring it might be at first.
The track finishes, leaving behind not emptiness, but a clean, resonant space. It makes you wonder: when you finally silence the ghosts, is the quiet that follows peace, or just the sound of yourself, learning to speak in your own voice for the very first time?
