EP Review: Madra Salach - 'It's a Hell of an Age'
Madra Salach’s debut EP, It’s a Hell of an Age, is a piece of work so devastatingly beautiful that it will haunt you for days after your first listen.
If you don’t know, get to know Madra Salach, the six-piece folk band from Dublin, Ireland, who have been steadily taking over the Irish music scene long before their debut EP, It’s a Hell of an Age, was ever announced. It is rare these days for a band to build up their presence, to be the name on everyone’s lips, to gather a following, without officially releasing any music, but that’s exactly what Madra Salach did. Instead, the band captured people’s attention through their live performances. It is a testament to their talent, blinding proof of it really, how quickly word spread of the six-piece, particularly during the second half of 2025. “Have you heard of these lads?” “You must go see them if you’re at that festival,” “So and so told me to go see Madra Salach,” and similar sentences could be heard around various music events throughout Ireland. Now, with an impressive number of gigs and festivals already under their belts, the band are finally releasing their debut EP, It’s a Hell of an Age, on January 23rd.
With It’s A Hell Of An Age, Madra Salach have taken folk music and spun it on its head. They’ve pulled “traditional folk” apart by the seams and added their own experimental layers to it, the mandolin blending with the electronic sounds of the synth, the crashing of drums, the depth created by the harmonium. These layers, combined with the guttural vocals of lead singer Paul Banks, are exactly why word of the band spread in the first place. They’ve made sure that these layers are present, that their unique sound can be heard loud and clear, their talent bleeding through every track on the EP.
Their first single Blue & Gold is the opener, with Maxime Arnold creating a chill-inducing droning sound on the harmonium before Banks' haunting vocals come in. The Irish are known for their storytelling abilities, and this song is a fine example of that. While loosely based on Paul’s habit for buying scratch cards in his early twenties, the slow start, the steady plucking of Jack Martin on the mandolin, the ever-building tension created by the instruments and the lyrics, “don’t worry my dear / look what I have here / a ticket of blue and of gold” turn it into the perfect folktale. A clear picture of the main character, his frustrated partner and his “pining” wallet is painted for the listeners, who are brought through all of the highs and lows of one’s gambling addiction. The climax of the song, with its quickened pace and sporadic crashing of drums, leads nicely into the second track.
I Was Just A Boy is an atmospheric seven-minute piece that will stay with you long after it has ended. It opens with Adam Cullen’s gentle strumming of guitar, Martin’s pluck of the mandolin, Jack Lawlor’s subtle bass, before Banks’ biting vocals begin. It’s a retelling of adolescence, the tumultuousness of it. Paul’s vocals become grittier, angrier as the song continues to build. What starts off as an eerie folk song quickly becomes a seven-minute epic, a piece that feels made for film. It’s hard not to imagine someone trapezing through haunting, foggy scenery similar to that in Nosferatu, or a bunch of vampires dancing in the moonlight as they did in Sinners, when listening to I Was Just A Boy. The final build, the quick, chaotic playing of instruments that continue long after the vocals end are almost hypnotic. It’s a tune that lingers in the mind; one will be sure to find themselves humming, whistling its eerie sound to themselves without even realising it.
Then comes the first cover on the EP, Spanical Hill. It’s an old traditional Irish folk ballad, one that has been covered by many great Irish musicians over the years, The Dubliners, The Wolf Tones and Christy Moore, to name a few. Now, Madra Salach have taken the ballad and given it their own unique twist. It's darker, heavier than previous covers. Traces of doom-folk experts Lankum’s influence are woven throughout. It is not dissimilar to I Was Just A Boy, with its eerie, dreamlike sound, particularly when Jack Martin comes in on the tin whistle, elevating the track, the sound becoming somewhat otherworldly. A song made for listening to when walking through hazy forests or watching as sheets of fog roll down a mountain…or some hills.
Those who have been lucky enough to see Madra Salach live will be familiar with the track The Man Who Seeks Pleasure. A song that is overwhelming in its beauty and its power, one that both tears your heart to pieces before sewing it back up again. As a writer, it’s a difficult one to describe; it’s very much in the “you have to hear it to believe it” category. It’s a different type of raw.
The slow, gentle hum of the harmonium, Paul’s gentle, trembling vocals lead you into the track, “I knelt down to kiss you / lick the sugar off the cane / for the man who seeks pleasure / is the man who seeks pain.” As it steadily climbs, the gentle plucks of the mandolin and the guitar are an extra tug on the heartstring. The weight of this track is inescapable; the lyrics are simple, in theory, but combined with the music and Banks' vocals, they become truly devastating. Finally, the slow beat of Dara Duffy on the drums comes in, Paul’s voice rising, scratching, guttural, “I’m lying here naked / I’m drenched from the rain / well the man who seeks pleasure / is the man who seeks pain.” A subtle tremor in the voice. The emotion of it hitting you right in the gut. It’s a rarity of a song, timeless, the type of track that cements itself right into your very bones.
Finally, closing out their EP is their cover of Murphy Can Never Go Home, a poignant Irish folk tune that tells the story of an Irish migrant worker in Britain. Their cover sounds and feels a lot more traditional than that of the previous tracks; it is a song made for a session in a pub. It’s stripped of all of the layers, the experimentation, the twists of the first four songs. The pluck and strum of Cullen on the acoustic guitar is all that can be heard underneath the lead singer’s gritty vocals. It’s a heavy song to listen to, particularly as an Irish person living abroad, as Banks gruffly sings, “and he longs to go back home to Ireland…his big heart is breaking / Murphy can never go home.” It’s both a pleasure and a pain to listen to, but Madra Salach did warn us that “a man who seeks pleasure / is a man who seeks pain.”
There is so much music out there in the world, so much choice, so much to explore and discover that it’s sometimes hard to come across something as special as It’s a Hell of an Age. But that’s what this EP is, it’s rare, and it’s special, as are the band who made it. The band have successfully managed to capture the magic, the energy of their live performances within this record, which is a difficult thing to achieve. It is powerful in the way that it pulls on every emotion, how it inspires and how it captures your attention from start to finish. It’s a Hell of an Age is a piece of work people can come back to again and again without ever tiring. The first of hopefully many timeless records from Madra Salach. And really, if you don’t know them, then get to know them.
Words by Angela English
