Dublin six-piece Madra Salach announce their debut album Gorta, set for release January 15th via Island Records. The news follows the release of their single “Ribbon Factory” last Friday which serves as the first taste of the record and was described by The Guardian as “taut insistent and wracked with pain… a gothic nightmare.”
Table Of Content
Named after the Irish word for “hunger”, Gorta is an album about inheritance: what we carry from the generations before us, what we leave behind, and the many forms that hunger can take. Rooted in Irish traditional music the album is pushed into darker, more experimental and contemporary territory.
“I usually write from personal experience,” suggests Paul Banks, the group’s frontman and lyricist. “I try not to go too big-picture. I can tap into the emotions that way.” What he found, writing, was the private ache kept opening out onto something far older. “The ideas of longing and yearning, all the kinds of hunger, they slot into where we are as 21st century Irish people. The more I’ve thought and written about Irishness, the more I’ve seen how strange a history and a position and a culture we have.”
The sleeve of the album, created by Oscar Torrans, holds all of that in a single figure: a Blemmyes, one of the akephaloi of ancient legend, the headless ones whose faces sat in their chests.
The album was written collectively by all six members of the band and recorded together as a full group, capturing the chemistry and physicality that has made their live performances such a central part of their identity. Produced by Loren Humphrey in New York — whose recent credits include Westside Cowboy and Cameron Winter — Gorta moves between moments of stark intimacy and full-band eruptions.
The album arrives at the end of a remarkable year for Madra Salach. Following the release of their debut EP It’s a Hell of an Age, which reached No. 3 on the Irish Albums Chart and the Top 10 of the UK Official Independent Albums Chart, the band have rapidly established themselves as one of the most compelling live acts to emerge from Ireland delivering standout performances at The Great Escape, End of the Road, Primavera, Latitude, Roskilde, Green Man and many more.
The band are currently on a sold-out headline UK tour which includes two nights at London’s Electric Ballroom and Manchester’s New Century Hall, before moving on to sold out tours in Ireland and North America where they sold out 3 shows in New York in a week.
Gorta is out on 15 January 2027 via Island Records. The band have an upcoming performance on Jools Holland later this month (October 25th).
Madra Salach is Paul Banks (vocals), Adam Cullen (guitar), Jack Martin (mandolin/synth), Maxime Arnold (harmonium), Dara Duffy (drums) and Jack Lawlor (bass).
Gorta album artwork by Oscar Torrans
Gorta tracklisting
- Hunger
- Ribbon Factory
- Tunnel Tigers
- Searrach
- The Stolen Sheep
- Bolg
- She Talks to the Telly
- Cranes
- Circus Horse
- The Haunted Isle of Green
Madra Salach tour dates
- 9 October – Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich, UK — Sold Out
- 10 October – Rescue Rooms, Nottingham, UK — Sold Out
- 11 October – The Bullingdon, Oxford, UK — Sold Out
- 13 October – Electric Ballroom, London, UK — Sold Out
- 14 October – Electric Ballroom, London, UK — Sold Out
- 3 December – Les Transmusicales, Rennes, France
- 5 December – Bank Lane, Waterford, Ireland — Sold Out
- 6 December – Dolans, Limerick, Ireland — Sold Out
- 10 December – Vicar Street, Dublin, Ireland — Sold Out
- 11 December – Mandela Hall, Belfast, UK — Sold Out
- 12 December – Leisureland, Galway, Ireland — Sold Out
- 17 December – Set Theatre, Kilkenny, Ireland — Sold Out
- 18 December – Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ireland — Sold Out
- 19 December – Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Ireland — Sold Out
- 8 January – Rockaway Beach, Bognor Regis, UK
- 2–6 June – Primavera, Spain
- 26 June – Slane Castle, County Meath, Ireland — supporting Fontaines D.C.
- 27 June – Slane Castle, County Meath, Ireland — supporting Fontaines D.C.
Madra Salach have also been covered on SoundBite ahead of their Newcastle show at The Grove.
Photo: Emily Lipson
About Madra Salach
Madra Salach met whilst playing in different outfits on the city’s indie scene and bonded over a shared love of the Irish traditional canon which led to them playing impromptu pub sessions. Taking inspiration from the growing experimental folk scene in Ireland, the group added members, instruments and electronic elements to emerge with their own compositions, which are at the same time strikingly modern and written with a voice that could have emerged at any point throughout the last century.
Their January 2026 debut EP It’s a Hell of an Age blended original songs with reimagined traditional material and reached No. 3 in Ireland and the UK Independent Albums Top 10. Now signed to Island Records, Madra Salach are building strong momentum through festival appearances, sold-out Ireland, EU and UK headline tours and collaborations including upcoming album The Songs of Shane MacGowan out November 2026 which includes Bruce Springsteen, Primal Scream, Lisa O’Neill among others.
Praise for Madra Salach
“Taut, insistent and wracked with pain, this is a gothic nightmare from an Irish folk band who keep turning up the volume on their word of mouth with every impassioned live performance” — The Guardian
“perhaps there’s no other way to fully encapsulate and describe them than as, generational” — So Young
“Wowing audiences on the festival circuit” — The Observer
“Paul Banks has a resonant boom of a voice” — The Times
“merge the intense poetic nihilism of Fontaines D.C. with The Pogues’ effervescence and the dark traditional tones of Lankum” — Uncut
“Impossible to turn away from” — DIY Magazine
“Madra Salach are proving to be a major force within modern Irish folk” — Rolling Stone UK
“There’s nothing quite like the live stage when it comes to Madra Salach” — The Line of Best Fit
“had the entire audience completely spellbound” — The Independent
“goosebump-inducing vocal – might well be the performance of the weekend” — NME
“Paul Banks, who carried vulnerability and cultural-historical weight with a grain and richness beyond his apparent years” — MOJO
“Very emotional, kind of anarchic… I can’t wait for what this band does next” — Ann Powers, NPR
