Lankum

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Image courtesy of Sala Apolo.

Even though their latest album is called False Lankum, Ian Lynch, Daragh Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada and Radie Peat never hide their cards. From the album's opening track, "Go Dig My Grave," they are completely up front: it is an eight-minute transition from the fog of Irish tradition to the darkness of atmospheric noise that tells you everything about the quartet's universe. Lankum, in short, is a band that does not hide—although curiously the world has taken a while to discover them.

There will be those who still consider them a secret, but in any case it would be an open secret after The Guardian, The Quietus, Uncut and Loud & Quiet chose False Lankum as the best album of 2023. A unanimous recognition (and somewhat late because it is actually the fourth work of their career) for a particular proposal: this Irish folk band cannot be defined as folk alone. They are a doom version of The Pogues, Grouper covering Fleet Foxes, a Celtic re-conversion of Swans—all at the same time.

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