Madra Salach have revealed their first full album, Gorta, and released its lead single, Ribbon Factory, NME reported. The record is due January 15 through Island Records and follows the band's debut EP, It's A Hell Of An Age.
A record about hunger
Loren Humphrey, whose credits include Westside Cowboy and Cameron Winter, produced the album. Its title is the Irish word for hunger. According to NME, the band keeps its tie to traditional Irish music while moving toward experimental and darker ground.
The album is meant to examine the different kinds of hunger people experience, among them the pull to return to what has been left behind and the inheritance passed down through generations. Frontman Paul Banks said he generally writes from personal experience and avoids anything too big-picture, because that is how he reaches the emotion. He tied the theme to the band's own place in the world.
"The ideas of longing and yearning, all the kinds of hunger, they slot into where we are as 21st century Irish people," Banks told NME.
The cover art is by Oscar Torrans and depicts a Blemmyes, a figure from medieval lore: a headless being with its face on its chest.
The single
Ribbon Factory is the first music released from the album. NME described it as gothic in theme, with a heavy atmosphere that is expected to carry through the rest of the record. The band said they wrote it in early 2025 and have played it live ever since, and that it shaped the direction they are heading. They added that sharing a studio version feels rewarding.
The announcement follows a conversation with NME at The Great Escape festival earlier this year. There, Banks said the band's commercial success was astonishing, since he had only hoped to find a small corner of the niche folk revival and play small rooms. He also said the songs they are now writing are built around energetic live performance.
NME also placed the band's set at The Great Escape 2026 among its ten best shows of the festival, praising an "impassioned, snarling take on traditional Irish folk."
Reporting sources: Music News | First For Music News | NME, “Madra Salach announce debut album ‘Gorta’ with ominous single ‘Ribbon Factory’”.