Iona Zajac – ‘Bang’ album review: a bomb has truly exploded
Emerging as a new artist is tough at the best of times, let alone when you already have a seismic precedent behind you. The only option is to throw everything at it. Step forward, Iona Zajac.
The Skinny: For the Scottish singer, who has already become a permanent member of the new iteration of The Pogues, rubber-stamping her own indelible mark as a solo artist is bound to be a tougher ask than most, given that she is steadily making a name within the ranks of classic Irish folk rock.
But Zajac’s sure-footed assurance and craft of music for her debut album Bang immediately puts any and all of these fears to rest. There’s something visceral, explosive, but also tenderly haunting in both her songwriting and sonics that instantly makes you sit up and listen – and, majestically, over the course of 11 lengthy tracks, still manages to keep you as enraptured.
The fact that Zajac stands as an independent artist is testament to the fire that palpates through this record. There’s anger and angst just as much as there is also reflection and remorse, and this diverse palette of emotion turns the album into a true portrait of feeling that the artist has evidently spent years refining and polishing.
Through the searing honesty of ‘Anton’ to the screaming spectrality of ‘Murder Mystery’, Bang brings together a firework combining everything from traditional folk lilts to full-force hard rock, in a culmination that feels simultaneously classic but also like a breath of fresh air. In some ways, it shouldn’t work, but it really does.
It’s almost as if Zajac could go one and done with the music industry – she’s already climbed the mountain, so what else is there left to summit? Yet through all those depths of despair and toiling for self-reckoning, surely one can hope there are clearer skies ahead.
The Verdict: Contemporary Scottish music can do either one of two things: veer so traditionally that it’s sleep-inducing, or go so avant-garde that you almost can’t wrap your head around it. We need something in the middle, with just enough edge but also enough grounding in familiarity, to keep us comfortable.
While it’s maybe unfair to label an artist with such a specific niche at still such an early stage in their career, Zajac could definitely be the answer to that call. Her debut album is unbridled, arresting, and completely commanding; something which embodies everything that making an entrance with a Bang should be.
Defining track: ‘Anton’
Release date: November 21st, 2025 | Producer: Dani Bennett-Spragg | Label: Independent
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