MARUJA - Pain To Power

No boundaries, no labels, a healing balm for the soul that at the same time forces the listener to recognise and reckon with every facet of their emotions, first and foremost those tied to pain. Nothing less was to be expected from "Pain To Power", the first (long-awaited) crucial milestone in the journey of Maruja, who with "Knocknarea" (2023) and "Connla's Well" (2024) had shown they had finally found their winning formula, after three earlier, short-lived attempts that went largely unnoticed. The band's granite-hard foundations rest on lyrics steeped in philosophy and a healthy dose of protest, centred on society and current political dynamics, wrapped in improvisations that take their cue from post-rock and free jazz, contaminated and roughened up at will by jolts of punk, post-hardcore, noise and rap.

The real countdown to the full-length debut of the Manchester quartet led by Harry Wilkinson had already begun with the release of "Tir na nÓg" last February, since it was also the first work, after only self-released material, to bear the Music For Nations name, the label founded in 1983 as a Zomba Records subsidiary and now known as the heaviest corner of Sony Music UK; a further telling sign of the band's intent to keep pushing forward with their loud, unconventional sound.

One of the main keys to reading "Pain To Power" places the emphasis on the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and on those who profit from conflict while standing by and watching, amid a bleak, pervasive nihilism that now leaves us "disconnected" from the world and from our own humanity. Sound-wise, there's a greater push towards hip-hop and noise hybrids, alongside a renewed desire to capture the band's live intensity on record as faithfully as possible, without ever slipping into the obvious.

Ruthless and direct, the opener "Bloodsport" swoops down baring Jacob Hayes's ferocious drumming and Joe Carroll's relentless saxophone, the perfect instrumental counterpart to the frontman's rapped vocals, a move that (ideally) recalls the explosive opening track of "Blindness" by Murder Capital, though its mood leans more towards post-hc influences, with a glance at Show Me The Body. Beneath Wilkinson's verses, the sax alternates sinuous tones with direct invective, ready to turn into dominant bursts in the interludes of the following "Look Down On Us", the album's intricate, magnetic centrepiece at nearly ten minutes long, already performed live since the band's first visit to Italy at the Covo Club in Bologna, in October 2024.

The saxophone's phrasing once again acts as a thread of continuity with the previous track in the schizophrenic intro of the unpredictable "Saoirse", which after its initial impact gradually takes on orchestral airs: the tone suddenly turns more solemn, in a rising climax dominated by the mantra "It's our differences that make us beautiful", a symbol of openness to others and of the will to let go of one's fears in order to reclaim freedom.

The evolution of the elegant jazz echoes of "Born To Die" slowly leads to a dramatic, destructive industrial-tinged finale, with drums and a fatal guitar riff in the foreground, a direction maintained through the tightly wound rhythm section of the following "Break The Tension", another track that has long been part of the quartet's live set, before winking at Rage Against The Machine 2.0-style rap-metal choruses with "Trenches".

Devoted to pure improvisation, the atmospheric, cathartic "Zaytoun" - whose title is an Arabic word that can refer to both the olive tree and its fruit, a term loaded with symbolic weight denoting ties to the land and the resilience of the Palestinian people - introduces the theme of love, which takes shape and substance in the polyrhythmic structures and choral vocals of the closing "Reconcile".

In a faithful emotional snapshot of present-day reality, Maruja's debut LP charts an arduous path through a spiral of violence, rage, suffering and spirituality, clinging fiercely to every faint glimmer of hope, in an attempt to reconnect with our "more" human side, today more than ever set aside and forgotten, both within ourselves and between one another.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

12/09/2025