Maruja - Connla’s Well
Connla's Well is the highly anticipated follow-up to 2023's Knocknarea EP - one of the best projects released across 2023, and some would day across the 2020's so far. To say that expectations are/were high would be a severe understatement. The tangible taste in the air identifies as the real deal.
Maruja's meteoric rise has been a long time in the making. People catching on can sometime feel like a painstakingly slow process. Sometimes the longer said process takes, the more there is to catch on to; this seems to be the case with Manchester's Maruja. 2023's Knocknarea project alluded to the scale that the band are able to fulfil; the harsh beauty of the material at a staggering depth on the windswept metric. A part of the recent rise in acts of a post-punk kin, Maruja tend to lean in on the darker side of the human psyche - the psyche being the slipperiest slope that you'll ever tread. With little to lessen the power of the tide, one wrong step and it's down you go.
Three singles in 'The Invisible Man', 'One Hand Behind the Devil' and 'Zeitgeist' make up the bulk of Connla's Well's twenty-one minute runtime. They are bookended by two previously unreleased pieces. Title track 'Connla's Well' growls into existence. A snarling bite underlies the overhead soar of impending, though patient, doom. It will get you. Maybe not now. But someday. The foghorn lost at sea will find you. It will also leave you right where you are - alone to fend for yourself. Connla's Well closes out on a reflective track 'Resisting Resistance' - a piece of a yearning disposition.
The Invisible Man's impassioned and agonizing refrains of "The truth. It hides." feels like the soul is at odds with itself; further afield than one had thought. Torn apart by the toughest love. Left in pieces; these tatters have no answers. Things all around, but nothing to fulfil a sense of self. The mystery of mankind.
They kept their end of the bargain - quality-wise, Maruja can't be touched. The mighty Maruja continue their ascent unto the upper echelon of the music scene.
The truth. It hides. It lingers in the place where you're least likely to look. Inside.
