Middler’s second single from their debut album Sacrosanct arrives June 9 via their own label Saturated Ideals. Titled “A Martyr Beneath,” the track responds directly to last summer’s anti-immigration protests in Belfast. Written in the aftermath of real-life violence witnessed firsthand, the song captures the unease of a moment that felt both familiar and suddenly urgent.
“Growing up in Northern Ireland, civil unrest became background noise. The 12th of July, the flag protests—it’s always there. But last summer felt different,” the band shares. They recall being on Botanic Avenue, on their way to a day party, when clashes broke out between protesters and police. “Businesses were vandalised, chairs met with windows. We tried to carry on like normal, but it felt hollow. That tension, the dissonance between what we saw and what we were meant to ignore left a mark. This song is the result.”
The lyrics offer no solutions or manifestos. Instead, they evoke emotional dissonance and inherited violence: “Caught a shop doorway, burning / The tears aren’t born from smoke / Would take a century of learning / For that generation.” The tone is observational, almost shellshocked—watching from a distance, yet too close to look away. “It wasn’t written for or against any one group,” the band clarifies. “It came from the place of a bystander, someone whose attention was caught by the TV in a neighbour’s house.”
Musically, “A Martyr Beneath” is as stark and volatile as the subject it reflects. Angular guitar lines cut through rigid, almost mechanical rhythms. Siren-like textures recur in the background—subtle but persistent. The atmosphere leans toward detachment, but never fully disengages. It’s this tension—between detachment and despair, passivity and protest—that gives the song its shape.
The martyr, as the title implies, isn’t a hero or figurehead. It’s society itself, worn thin by historical repetition and the failure to learn from it. “It reflects the endless battle between humanity and individualism,” the band says. “Only love is on the line / Even will withers and dies / Patience is only kind,” they sing—not to convince or persuade, but to record what remains.
“A Martyr Beneath” follows their earlier single “Turismo” and offers a deeper glimpse into Sacrosanct, due out October 24. Written and produced over two years, the record appears to be built not on escapism but confrontation—a product of time spent reckoning with what it means to observe, absorb, and survive the present moment.
