Urutaa

The traditional kind of music I guess was haka, and we thought haka sounded a lot like metal...

– Vocalist Lewis de Jong, on similarities between haka and heavy metal inspiring the band to write lyrics in te reo, Te Karere, September 2016

The band explains that ‘Urutaa’ was originally about a clash of ideas and expectations, leading to stress and unhappiness, which was likened to a plague or urutaa. The Māori lyrics refer to specific events, which occurred in the Bay of Islands in the 1800s, in which a pocket watch was inadvertently dropped into the harbour culminating in what is now notoriously known as ‘The Burning of the Boyd’.

– Press release for the launch of 'Urutaa', 22 November 2016

Alien Weaponry -- who may look Pākehā but are Māori and fluent in te reo -- manage to pack more fury, political outrage and energy into one song than most local artists do over a lifetime.

– Critic Graham Reid, in a review of album Tū Elsewhere website, 8 June 2018