Indie favourite Maria Kelly announces her second album Waiting Room, out 28th February, 2025 via VETA Records, with her shimmering new single ‘When I’m Angry’. The release precedes her highly-anticipated performance at Other Voices. A self-admitted people pleaser, ‘When I’m Angry’ sees Maria finally tapping into the fury that she often finds difficult to express.
Maria explains: “I’m someone who tends to burst into tears when I feel angry. It’s such a frustrating reaction, because it often makes me unable to speak up for myself in the moments I need to. This song is about the resentment that comes with letting others walk all over you. Though, it’s not really about the other person as much as it’s about claiming back your voice as your own.”
”Waiting Room” – Track List
1. Like A Wave
2. Waiting Room
3. Drive
4. Something Better
5. Nearly Thirty
6. Slump
7. Rearview Mirror
8. His Parents’ House
9. When I’m Angry
10. Coming to Kill
11. Appointments
Waiting Room is both a very real place, as Maria found herself stuck in sterile clinics hoping for answers to inscrutable chronic pain, and a dream-like, surreal space representing her own inner world.
“This album is an exploration of the roadblocks, both internally and externally, that keep us feeling powerless and taking away our agency,” Maria explains. Beyond Ireland’s oblique quagmire of a health system, Maria ruminates on the housing crisis, societal expectations, faded friendships, and more—all through a personal lens, but communicated with a poetic universality as only a double Aquarius can.
The singles released from the album so far include ‘Drive’, ‘Slump’ and ‘Something Better’, all of which have received ample praise and radio play. ‘Drive’ was featured in the international trailer for the film Ezra, starring Bobby Cannavale, Rose Byrne, Whoopi Goldberg, and Robert De Niro. ‘Drive’ and ‘Slump’ were included on the RTÉ Radio 1 Recommends List, and all three singles received praise from the likes of Nialler9, The Thin Air, Chordblossom, GoldenPlec, Hot Press, The Last Mixed Tape, and more. Maria played live on RTÉ Radio 1 and Galway Bay FM, in addition to performances at the Whelan’s We’ve Only Just Begun Festival, the Galway International Arts Festival with Ezra Williams, her sold-out ‘Night of New Things’ at Bello Bar, as the opener for Tom Odell at Live at the Marquee in Cork and her stellar showcase at Ireland Music Week.
Waiting Room album cover by Tara Mollan