Ultan – Wake Up (2025)
Irish singer and songwriter Ultan is not leaving the decade of his fifties quietly. Since January 2025, he has been releasing a number of singles and is getting the word out about the first, ‘Wake Up’. Like many of the other songs Ultan writes, ‘Wake Up’ is an urgent inducement of the sort that is social without addressing any issue in particular. These days, anyone listening to the song could probably relate to the dire forecast of doom and deception.
After an opening riff over a four-on-the-floor drumbeat, ‘Wake Up’ settles into a driving beat that keeps it going for the next two minutes and 39 seconds. There are one or two guitar breaks, but for the most part, the song is dominated by the groove and Ultan’s voice. The groove is cool, but his voice seems curiously detached from the intensity the band is striving for. Part of this may be because he sings in a lower register than the frantic vocals of his musical forebears.
Although Ultan cites influences of AC/DC and Bon Jovi as well as Motorhead, he sounds the most like an attempted resurrection of the groundbreaking English rock band. The relentless tempos and the doom-laden imagery are well within that band’s milieu, if not so much the tendency to direct the listener’s attention outward. Whereas Motorhead was obsessed with detailing every rebel way they were bad-asses, Ultan seems to be about every way the world is falling apart. The story has been told before. Many times. XYZ bad thing (pick your poison) can’t be tolerated anymore, so it’s time to “wake up” and take a stand against it. But the song has a fill-in-the-blanks feel that undercuts any emotional impetus. The line “poison in our veins” could refer to any number of things. Maybe drugs? Maybe vaccines? Maybe processed food? The reference to “righteous deeds” is similarly generic. Is he going biblical, or just referring to any act that isn’t as bad as the bad thing?
Maybe the intention isn’t to protest a particular thing. Maybe it’s to create a kind of shot in the arm to counter apathy. As in, wake up and look at the insidious things around you and do something about them. Fair enough, as far as it goes. But one person’s systemic evil is another’s convenience, and if you want to galvanise people, you have to do more than assume we all agree on what evil is.
Find out more about Ultan on his Facebook, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
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