{"id":2101229,"date":"2026-08-19T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2101229"},"modified":"2026-08-19T08:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:00:00","slug":"madra-salach-are-remoulding-traditional-irish-folk-to-their-own-blistering-tune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2101229","title":{"rendered":"Madra Salach are remoulding traditional Irish folk to their own blistering tune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/madra-salach-radar-credit-matt-spratt.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article id=\"template-id-2947849\" class=\"post-2947849 tdb_templates type-tdb_templates status-publish post\">\n<div id=\"tdi_65\" class=\"tdc-zone\">\n<div class=\"tdc_zone tdi_66  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div id=\"tdi_67\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_68  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_70  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_breadcrumbs tdi_71 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-breadcrumbs \" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_71\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span>Features<\/span><span>Music Interviews<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_title tdi_72 tdb-single-title td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_72\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Madra Salach are remoulding traditional Irish folk to their own blistering tune<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_subtitle tdi_73 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_73\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p>Steadily forging a formidable live reputation across the 2026 festival circuit, the Dublin sextet are carving out a lane that\u2019s both modern and timeless<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_author tdi_75 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-post-meta\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_75\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-author-name-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-author-by\">By<\/span> Lisa Wright<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_date tdi_76 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 tdb-post-meta\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_76\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><time class=\"entry-date updated td-module-date\" datetime=\"2026-08-19T09:00:00+01:00\">19th August 2026<\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_77\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row_1400 td-stretch-content\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_78  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_80  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_featured_image tdi_81 tdb-content-horiz-left td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_81\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"696\" height=\"442\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/madra-salach-radar-credit-matt-spratt-696x442.jpg\" alt=\"Madra Salach\" title=\"madra-salach-radar-credit-matt-spratt\"><figcaption class=\"tdb-caption-text\">Madra Salach credit: Matt Spratt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_82\" class=\"tdc-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_83  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_85  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_content tdi_86 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 td-post-content tagdiv-type\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_86\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">A<\/strong>t this year\u2019s edition of tastemaker new music festival The Great Escape, the most potent performance of the weekend belonged to a band whose roots stretch back more than a century. In the absolutely heaving basement of Brighton\u2019s Chalk, Dublin sextet Madra Salach unleashed their visceral, punk-entwined take on Irish trad classics dating back to the 1950s (\u2018Murphy Can Never Go Home\u2019) and the 1870s (\u2018Spancil Hill\u2019), weaving their tales of displaced immigrants mourning for a sense of belonging among original new songs finding kinship within grief, love and loss.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>READ MORE: NME\u2019s top 10 shows from The Great Escape 2026<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the set\u2019s climax was closer \u2018The Man Who Seeks Pleasure\u2019: a slow-burning moment of ultimate emotional purging, dredged audibly from the core of vocalist Paul Banks. A song that eulogises the self-destructive line between pleasure and pain, it was written in mandolin player Jack Martin\u2019s bedroom a short couple of years ago, but its hardened, world-weary sentiments \u2013 like much of Madra Salach\u2019s outlook as a whole \u2013 feel timeless.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad0 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe thing that I like about that line (\u201c<em>For the man who seeks pleasure, is the man who seeks pain<\/em>\u201d) is that it\u2019s not saying anything new,\u201d considers Banks, speaking to <em>NME<\/em> alongside Martin during a rare day off in Dublin. \u201cIt\u2019s a behavioural pattern that a lot of people are stuck in that\u2019s been summed up into a sentence that I can then scream over a drone, which then feels cathartic for me and seems to be cathartic for people watching. For a long time when we were gigging it, I\u2019d almost always get too close to the line emotionally, and I\u2019d be really dysregulated for an hour after the show. And I think that speaks to\u2026\u201d He takes a beat. \u201cI like to think there\u2019s something special about that song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their live show\u2019s gut-punching closing moments are but one reason why the band \u2013 completed by guitarist Adam Cullen, bassist Jack Lawlor, drummer Dara Duffy and harmonium player Maxime Arnold \u2013 have become one of 2026\u2019s most unmissable new acts. Last summer, Madra Salach were yet to play a festival outside of their native Ireland; this year, they\u2019re notching up around 30, from a support at Kneecap\u2019s London all-dayer (where one in five people seemed to be sporting their merch) to hefty slots at Green Man, TRNSMT and Electric Picnic.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Madra Salach - The Man Who Seeks Pleasure (Live From London)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q2GncJdNsG0?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that it\u2019s having this much commercial success is blowing my mind, because my hopes for this project were to find our own little pocket in the niche folk revival so we could play small rooms in Dublin,\u201d Banks says.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">B<\/strong>ut even from the beginnings of the project in 2023, Madra Salach have never stayed in just one lane. Their genesis is a \u201cblurry\u201d one, the two musicians state. On one side, Banks and Duffy had taken to playing live nights at their local pub, The 1884, covering The Pogues and The Dubliners at open sessions where \u201cyou were there to play drinking music\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad1 id_ad_content-horiz-center\">\n<h5 class=\"taboola-mid-article-title\">Recommended<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p>On the other, Martin \u2013 whose grandfather was the president of SIPTU, the largest union in Ireland \u2013 had proposed a project to the vocalist where they would reinterpret old workers\u2019 songs, updating them with tape loops and ambient drones. \u201cI grew up hearing those songs and, as I got older, I understood the context a lot more,\u201d Martin recalls. \u201cUsually people\u2019s grandparents have photos of Jesus on the walls, but mine had [trade union leader] Jim Larkin. Jim Larkin is my granddad\u2019s Pope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over time, the two strains began to fuse. Madra Salach\u2019s debut EP, January\u2019s \u2018It\u2019s A Hell Of An Age\u2019, was named after a line in \u2018Murphy Can Never Go Home\u2019 but its timely sentiment neatly sums up how the band see their mix of old and new. \u201cThe fact that, 80 years on, it\u2019s still so relevant made sense to us in terms of what we\u2019re trying to say with folk music: that it\u2019s rooted in history and tradition, but we\u2019re absolutely making music for now,\u201d says Banks. \u201cI think the centre of the folk ethos is that it\u2019s just human stories \u2013 stories of individuals as opposed to the history book stories of battles and conquerors and kings. It\u2019s a people\u2019s oral history, so as long as you\u2019re writing from a place of truth, everything else can follow.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFolk is a people\u2019s oral history, so as long as you\u2019re writing from a place of truth, everything else can follow\u201d \u2013 Paul Banks<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For the six-piece, that means taking these classic ideas and arranging them \u201clike you would in a standard guitar band, but the instruments are different, and the songs are different,\u201d suggests Banks. Firmly focused on the efficacy of their live set, they\u2019ve been finding that their writing has been growing \u201cmore teeth\u201d in tandem. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a chance to really cement a new body of work yet, but the new songs we\u2019re writing are such live songs that are so structured around a performance with energy,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n<p>Arriving in the wake of artists like Lankum, who\u2019ve brought traditional Irish folk to a wider audience, the door has been opened for Madra Salach to experiment with the form in their own way. \u201cI think we\u2019re very lucky that we\u2019re not having to plot this course on our own. People have the context. We don\u2019t have to pander too much to like, swilling pints of Guinness and wearing big jumpers because other bands have showcased that, culturally, we have a lot more to offer than that \u2013 even though I love big jumpers and Guinness,\u201d the frontman chuckles. \u201cWe jumped on the bandwagon, and it\u2019s going great!\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad2 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Far from hitching a ride on anyone else\u2019s train, however, the magnetism of Madra Salach lies in how clearly they believe in every note of what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s there in the way the original songs on \u2018It\u2019s A Hell Of An Age\u2019 \u2013 particularly the snarling sadness of \u2018I Was Just A Boy\u2019 \u2013 pick up the spiritual baton of their established forebears. And it\u2019s there in the undeniable presence and power that\u2019s made a Madra Salach live set one of the summer\u2019s must-see shows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny, because I could do all the same noises and movements that I do, but people have really highly-tuned bullshit detectors, and if I didn\u2019t mean it, they\u2019d be like, \u2018Ah, this guy\u2019s fucking putting it on\u2019,\u201d says Banks. \u201cSo I really try to go to the emotional centre of the songs and stay with it, and I find that to be one of my favourite things about singing \u2013 just inhabiting that place. The shit I hate is loading in and doing soundchecks, but getting emotional? I\u2019d be doing that anyway, so I\u2019m more than happy to do it on the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Madra Salach play Green Man Festival on August 20. Visit the band\u2019s website for their full tour dates and tickets.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_tags tdi_87 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_87\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<ul class=\"tdb-tags\">\n<li><span>Related Topics<\/span><\/li>\n<li>Folk<\/li>\n<li>Indie<\/li>\n<li>Madra Salach<\/li>\n<li>Punk<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_88\" class=\"tdc-row stretch_row_content td-stretch-content\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_89  wpb_row td-pb-row tdc-element-style\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_91  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"td-block td-a-rec td-a-rec-id-custom-spot tdi_92 td_block_template_2\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_93\" class=\"tdc-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_94  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_96  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"vc_row_inner tdi_98  vc_row vc_inner wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column_inner tdi_100  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-inner-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"vc_column-inner\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper td_block_wrap vc_raw_html tdi_102 \">\n<div class=\"td-fix-index\">\n<h3>More Stories<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap td_flex_block_1 tdi_103 td-pb-border-top td_module_flex_1--card td_module_flex_1--card--highlight td_block_template_2 tdc-no-posts td_flex_block\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_103\">\n<div id=\"tdi_103\" class=\"td_block_inner td-mc1-wrap\">\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">Wolf Alice complete run of \u2018The Clearing\u2019 B-sides with the folksy \u2018Hit The Sky\u2019<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">\u2018A Very Laufey Day\u2019 returns for 2026 with worldwide events<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">Geese\u2019s Cameron Winter announces \u2018Live At Carnegie Hall\u2019 album<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">Will Green Day ever headline Glastonbury? We asked them<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">Phoebe Bridgers cancels intimate UK album shows due to illness<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"td_module_flex td_module_flex_1 td_module_wrap td-animation-stack\">\n<div class=\"td-module-container td-category-pos-above\">\n<div class=\"td-module-meta-info\">\n                    Music News<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title td-module-title\">Beck soars \u201chigh as the sun\u201d on ethereal new single \u2018Disappearing Act\u2019\u00a0<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"tdi_104\" class=\"tdc-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_row tdi_105  wpb_row td-pb-row\">\n<div class=\"vc_column tdi_107  wpb_column vc_column_container tdc-column td-pb-span12\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper\">\n<div class=\"wpb_wrapper td_block_wrap vc_raw_html tdi_109 \">\n<div class=\"td-fix-index\">\n<h3>You May Also Like<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><span class=\"td-page-meta\"><\/span><span class=\"td-page-meta\"><span class=\"td-page-meta\"><\/span><\/span><span class=\"td-page-meta\"><\/span><\/article>\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"td_block_wrap tdb_single_content tdi_86 td-pb-border-top td_block_template_2 td-post-content tagdiv-type\" data-td-block-uid=\"tdi_86\">\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">A<\/strong>t this year\u2019s edition of tastemaker new music festival The Great Escape, the most potent performance of the weekend belonged to a band whose roots stretch back more than a century. In the absolutely heaving basement of Brighton\u2019s Chalk, Dublin sextet Madra Salach unleashed their visceral, punk-entwined take on Irish trad classics dating back to the 1950s (\u2018Murphy Can Never Go Home\u2019) and the 1870s (\u2018Spancil Hill\u2019), weaving their tales of displaced immigrants mourning for a sense of belonging among original new songs finding kinship within grief, love and loss.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>READ MORE: NME\u2019s top 10 shows from The Great Escape 2026<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the set\u2019s climax was closer \u2018The Man Who Seeks Pleasure\u2019: a slow-burning moment of ultimate emotional purging, dredged audibly from the core of vocalist Paul Banks. A song that eulogises the self-destructive line between pleasure and pain, it was written in mandolin player Jack Martin\u2019s bedroom a short couple of years ago, but its hardened, world-weary sentiments \u2013 like much of Madra Salach\u2019s outlook as a whole \u2013 feel timeless.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad0 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe thing that I like about that line (\u201c<em>For the man who seeks pleasure, is the man who seeks pain<\/em>\u201d) is that it\u2019s not saying anything new,\u201d considers Banks, speaking to <em>NME<\/em> alongside Martin during a rare day off in Dublin. \u201cIt\u2019s a behavioural pattern that a lot of people are stuck in that\u2019s been summed up into a sentence that I can then scream over a drone, which then feels cathartic for me and seems to be cathartic for people watching. For a long time when we were gigging it, I\u2019d almost always get too close to the line emotionally, and I\u2019d be really dysregulated for an hour after the show. And I think that speaks to\u2026\u201d He takes a beat. \u201cI like to think there\u2019s something special about that song.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Their live show\u2019s gut-punching closing moments are but one reason why the band \u2013 completed by guitarist Adam Cullen, bassist Jack Lawlor, drummer Dara Duffy and harmonium player Maxime Arnold \u2013 have become one of 2026\u2019s most unmissable new acts. Last summer, Madra Salach were yet to play a festival outside of their native Ireland; this year, they\u2019re notching up around 30, from a support at Kneecap\u2019s London all-dayer (where one in five people seemed to be sporting their merch) to hefty slots at Green Man, TRNSMT and Electric Picnic.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Madra Salach - The Man Who Seeks Pleasure (Live From London)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Q2GncJdNsG0?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>\u201cThe fact that it\u2019s having this much commercial success is blowing my mind, because my hopes for this project were to find our own little pocket in the niche folk revival so we could play small rooms in Dublin,\u201d Banks says.<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"dropcap\">B<\/strong>ut even from the beginnings of the project in 2023, Madra Salach have never stayed in just one lane. Their genesis is a \u201cblurry\u201d one, the two musicians state. On one side, Banks and Duffy had taken to playing live nights at their local pub, The 1884, covering The Pogues and The Dubliners at open sessions where \u201cyou were there to play drinking music\u201d.<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad1 id_ad_content-horiz-center\">\n<h5 class=\"taboola-mid-article-title\">Recommended<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<p>On the other, Martin \u2013 whose grandfather was the president of SIPTU, the largest union in Ireland \u2013 had proposed a project to the vocalist where they would reinterpret old workers\u2019 songs, updating them with tape loops and ambient drones. \u201cI grew up hearing those songs and, as I got older, I understood the context a lot more,\u201d Martin recalls. \u201cUsually people\u2019s grandparents have photos of Jesus on the walls, but mine had [trade union leader] Jim Larkin. Jim Larkin is my granddad\u2019s Pope.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over time, the two strains began to fuse. Madra Salach\u2019s debut EP, January\u2019s \u2018It\u2019s A Hell Of An Age\u2019, was named after a line in \u2018Murphy Can Never Go Home\u2019 but its timely sentiment neatly sums up how the band see their mix of old and new. \u201cThe fact that, 80 years on, it\u2019s still so relevant made sense to us in terms of what we\u2019re trying to say with folk music: that it\u2019s rooted in history and tradition, but we\u2019re absolutely making music for now,\u201d says Banks. \u201cI think the centre of the folk ethos is that it\u2019s just human stories \u2013 stories of individuals as opposed to the history book stories of battles and conquerors and kings. It\u2019s a people\u2019s oral history, so as long as you\u2019re writing from a place of truth, everything else can follow.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFolk is a people\u2019s oral history, so as long as you\u2019re writing from a place of truth, everything else can follow\u201d \u2013 Paul Banks<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For the six-piece, that means taking these classic ideas and arranging them \u201clike you would in a standard guitar band, but the instruments are different, and the songs are different,\u201d suggests Banks. Firmly focused on the efficacy of their live set, they\u2019ve been finding that their writing has been growing \u201cmore teeth\u201d in tandem. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had a chance to really cement a new body of work yet, but the new songs we\u2019re writing are such live songs that are so structured around a performance with energy,\u201d he notes.<\/p>\n<p>Arriving in the wake of artists like Lankum, who\u2019ve brought traditional Irish folk to a wider audience, the door has been opened for Madra Salach to experiment with the form in their own way. \u201cI think we\u2019re very lucky that we\u2019re not having to plot this course on our own. People have the context. We don\u2019t have to pander too much to like, swilling pints of Guinness and wearing big jumpers because other bands have showcased that, culturally, we have a lot more to offer than that \u2013 even though I love big jumpers and Guinness,\u201d the frontman chuckles. \u201cWe jumped on the bandwagon, and it\u2019s going great!\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"td-a-ad id_inline_ad2 id_ad_content-horiz-center\"><span class=\"td-adspot-title\">Advertisement<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Far from hitching a ride on anyone else\u2019s train, however, the magnetism of Madra Salach lies in how clearly they believe in every note of what they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s there in the way the original songs on \u2018It\u2019s A Hell Of An Age\u2019 \u2013 particularly the snarling sadness of \u2018I Was Just A Boy\u2019 \u2013 pick up the spiritual baton of their established forebears. And it\u2019s there in the undeniable presence and power that\u2019s made a Madra Salach live set one of the summer\u2019s must-see shows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s funny, because I could do all the same noises and movements that I do, but people have really highly-tuned bullshit detectors, and if I didn\u2019t mean it, they\u2019d be like, \u2018Ah, this guy\u2019s fucking putting it on\u2019,\u201d says Banks. \u201cSo I really try to go to the emotional centre of the songs and stay with it, and I find that to be one of my favourite things about singing \u2013 just inhabiting that place. The shit I hate is loading in and doing soundchecks, but getting emotional? I\u2019d be doing that anyway, so I\u2019m more than happy to do it on the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Madra Salach play Green Man Festival on August 20. Visit the band\u2019s website for their full tour dates and tickets.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/features\/music-interviews\/madra-salach-the-man-who-seeks-pleasure-interview-radar-3963211&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/www.nme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/madra-salach-radar-credit-matt-spratt.jpg&#8221;] FeaturesMusic Interviews Madra Salach are remoulding traditional Irish folk to their own blistering tune Steadily forging a formidable live reputation across the 2026 festival circuit, the Dublin sextet are carving out a lane that\u2019s both modern and timeless By Lisa Wright 19th August 2026 Madra Salach credit: Matt Spratt At this year\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,78],"class_list":["post-2101229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nme-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2101229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2101229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2101229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2101229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2101229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}