Paul Banks was working full time in a school and still could not afford to rent in Dublin. When Jamie Wilde interviewed him for The Line of Best Fit in January, the singer was at his parents’ house. It is a less romantic picture of a folk band’s hometown than the one usually sold alongside the pint glasses.
Madra Salach grew from two overlapping projects. Banks, Adam Cullen and Dara Duffy were playing traditional songs in pubs; Banks and Jack Martin were experimenting with synthesizers. Maxime Arnold and Jack Lawlor complete the six-piece. Their combination begins with musicians already working together in different ways, rather than a folk act adding electronics after the fact.
Their January EP, It’s a Hell of an Age, reached number three on the Irish Albums Chart. Spancil Hill sits among the five tracks, bringing its story of departure into a band whose singer has been unusually plain about the cost of staying. The traditional song’s exile sits beside a contemporary problem: having a job in Dublin still might not cover the rent.
Gorta follows on January 15, 2027 through Island Records, produced by Loren Humphrey in New York. Its title means hunger, which the band connects to inheritance; Oscar Torrans’ sleeve gives a headless figure a face in its chest. After Banks’ account of working full time without being able to rent in Dublin, the idea of what a generation receives is unusually concrete. A home is one thing that has become harder to pass on.