Style: Free-Form Jazz, Atmospheric, Post-Rock (instrumental)
Recommended for fans of: Pink Floyd, Swans, Explosions in the Sky, Prostitute
Country: United Kingdom
Release date: 20 February 2025
In Irish mythology, Tír na nÓg is the “Otherworld”, the “Land of the Young”. There, time passes a hundred times as quickly as in our world. Mortals sometimes visit Tír na nÓg, but if and when they return to Earth, they immediately regain all the years they missed. Oisín, an Irish warrior giant, spends three years in Tír na nÓg, returns to Ireland, touches the ground, and ages three hundred years in an instant, dying of old age and turning to dust. You wouldn’t know any of this from listening to this album though, because it’s got no lyrics whatsoever. If that sounds like a missed opportunity to include some kick-ass storytelling, you’d be correct. But don’t worry, there are missed opportunities instrumentally, as well.
Anyone who’s been in a band knows that you should always record your jam sessions, just in case something interesting springs to life during one of them. Back in my day, we would take those recordings, extract the better ideas, and write songs around them. But it seems like that’s not what the kids are into now: Tír na nÓg, the latest EP from Mancunians Maruja, is a jam recording like this, but released as-is. Straying from their usual punk / spoken word / rap schtick, Maruja recorded this fully-improvised album in a single take this past autumn.
Despite its lack of structure – intentional or otherwise – Maruja use Tír na nÓg as an opportunity to showcase their talent for writing really impactful atmospheric post-rock. Throughout Tír na nÓg, wailing saxophone, sparse guitar, and otherworldly vocal chants create an exotic, expansive feeling, like a desert sunrise that sits atop the earthy, mechanical rhythm section. This album would not be out of place on your Dune-themed Spotify playlist.
The saxophone lays the ethereal foundation of Tír na nÓg early on. Slowly slithering onto “Aon” around the one-minute mark, it grows increasingly intense and frenetic, while the guitars shine and shimmer like beaded curtains in the morning sun. Howling vocals join the scene and the whole track revs like an engine, then fades. “Dó” reiterates much of the energy of “Aon”, but is followed by “Trí”, which slows to a crawl, nearly stopping;, mechanically yowling, like an android falling to its knees as sand and corrosion finally grind its gears to a halt. “Ceathair”, the closing track, is an elegy, somberly echoing the first half of the album, remembering what was once full of energy and vitality and is now at rest.
Maruja‘s Tír na nÓg is an obviously-improvised work. It contains a handful of compelling musical ideas, but they often don’t lead anywhere. For instance, a crescendo near the end of the first track, “Aon”, leads into… another crescendo, and then another. An interesting saxophone melody appears partway through the second track, “Dó”; the drummer latches on to it and plays an imitative rhythm, then the saxophonist moves on to their next idea, but the drummer continues that rhythm for quite a while. When it’s obvious that nobody is coming back to it, he moves on as well. The drums and saxophone drive much of the dynamism of the piece, and the other instrumentalists tend to follow their lead, but for the most part this album sounds like a group of people playing at the same time—not together.
Tír na nÓg feels like it comes from the Land of the Young – it’s unpolished (which seems intentional) and amateurish (presumably unintentional). The Platonic prescription to “carve nature at the joints” goes unheeded here. For instance, the multiple crescendos mentioned earlier: one of them is at the end of “Aon”, but the others are at the beginning of “Dó”. Why not group them all together at the end of one track or at the beginning of the other? It feels arbitrary to split them apart. The gaeilgeoirí among you will also note that the tracks aren’t even named, just numbered: “Aon”, “Dó”, “Trí”, “Ceathair” is “One”, “Two”, “Three”, “Four” in Irish. Uninspired? Avant-Garde? You choose.
In just shy of twenty-three minutes, Maruja take the listener on an exhausting emotional rollercoaster with Tír na nÓg, but the improvisational nature of the album leaves something to be desired. The wordless chanting of this latest work is a welcome reprieve from the snotty shout-singing on the band’s 2024 hit “Break the Tension”. This group have a lot of potential. What they choose to do with it is up to them, but I hope they continue developing their talent for atmospheric rock like that found on Tír na nÓg.
Recommended tracks: Aon, Dó
You may also like: Zu, Five The Hierophant
Final verdict: 6/10
Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Music For Nations – Facebook | Official Website
Maruja is:
– Harry Wilkinson (lead vocals, guitar)
– Joe Carroll (vocals, alto saxophone)
– Matt Buonaccorsi (bass guitar)
– Jacob Hayes (drums)
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