Live Report: Madra Salach bring the sound of a changing Ireland to Electric Picnic

Ireland's indie darlings are taking a break from Drury duty to make the journey to Rankin's Wood for Madra Salach. Bambino's truck is parked outside, providing a little taste of home.

What began as three lads playing pubs and small venues across North Dublin has grown into something considerably bigger - and increasingly important to Ireland's contemporary folk scene. For those who are sufficiently Gael-pilled, of course.

In front of a sea of leather jackets, sambas and jeans so vintage they might just slip off in the rain, Madra Salach take to the stage.

They begin with their own soundcheck. It's low-key, relaxed and almost comically down to earth. There's no grand entrance, no manufactured anticipation. It feels like exactly the kind of casualness the band projects through their music - though perhaps there's also a little of the up-and-coming band still in there.

Then Paul Banks launches into their version of 'Tunnel Tigers'. The vocals come rapid-fire as he paces back and forth, surrounded by hard, fast guitar and bass.

"We're Madra Salach, we're excited to be here," Banks begins. "So excited that I skipped a whole verse there."

It's an early indication of the band's charm: even when things go slightly wrong, they simply keep going.

'Ribbon Factory' slows the pace, built around a distinctive, melancholic synthesiser melody and a driving bassline that recalls Joy Division. Banks' deep, resonant baritone sits comfortably against the atmospheric instrumentation, with harmonium adding another layer to the sound.

His accent is distinctly unfurnished - there's no attempt to smooth out the North Dublin edges. The synth is crucial. Jack Martin stretches the arrangement, creating a sense of longing and restrained anger that hangs over the song.

Madra Salach

Then Banks looks back on last year's festival. "We played Electric Picnic last year - in like an old train or something. This is much better, no hate to the train."

It isn't surprising that they're playing a larger stage this time around. Alternative Irish music has been flourishing, and Madra Salach feel like an increasingly prominent part of that movement.

'Bolg' explodes. Mandolin and drums carry the melody as fingers strum and pound at a speed between traditional folk and something far more abrasive.

And when each chaotic, intense song ends, Banks offers a remarkably polite: "Thank you!"

The chatter continues between songs. Banks asks how the Leaving Cert education reformists got on in their exams, bringing the conversation firmly back to the audience's world.

Then comes 'Cranes'. The skyline of Dublin is increasingly littered with construction cranes, while the homelessness remains impossible to ignore on the city's streets.

"The people in power would like you to believe it's a convoluted issue," Banks says. "It's not."

The song's frustration is aimed directly at the disconnect.

"I'm young, and I'm tired / But at least I'm not you." It's a line that lands particularly hard in a field packed with young people growing up in a country where homeownership increasingly feels like a distant fantasy.

Living with parents, cutting back on nights out and saving every spare penny are familiar realities. Madra Salach don't need to spell all of that out. Their music already sounds like the frustration.

Madra Salach

"When I was a very young boy, there was no TikTok or iPhones," Banks starts. The crowd waits for the inevitable "old-man rant."

"Out in the fields one day, a haggard old man told me folk music is going to have a moment." That man, we're told, is the band's own Jack Martin, who gets his own chance to speak.

"I'm fucking raging. We only got down here today, and I had to let down a friend. I was supposed to get on stage and split the G with sombr." He launches into a crowd-pleasing tangent about his friendship with sombr - or Shane, as he knows him - before the band get into 'I Was Just A Boy.'

Their harmonies slip through the heavy beat, layering voices that are sometimes loud and sometimes soft. It's a beautiful arrangement, especially against the band's heavier instrumental passages.

Those long instrumentals are another strength. They're not simply extending songs for the sake of it; they expand them, giving the arrangements room to breathe and creating an emotional depth that isn't immediately obvious beneath the noise.

There's time for one more. 'The Man Who Seeks Pleasure' has become one of the band's standout songs, exploring the relentless pursuit of excess and instant gratification - and the anguish and personal ruin that can follow when pleasure becomes an end in itself.

It's an appropriate way to close a set that has moved between anger and joy, tradition and experimentation, personal frustration and communal celebration.

Madra Salach