ALBUM REVIEW: LANKUM- ‘Between Earth and Sky’ (2018)

Their new album has been called the most exciting album of traditional Irish song in decades and Dublin natives Lankum show how to perform old songs in new ways. Distinctive four-part vocal harmonies with arrangements of uilleann pipes, concertina, Russian accordion, fiddle and guitar. Their repertoire spans Dublin music-hall ditties and street-songs, ballads from the Traveller tradition, traditional Irish and American dance tunes and their own original material.

There is only one thing I’d rather do more right now than listen to Lankum’s ‘Between Earth and Sky’ and that is go and see them live. Gushing a bit I know, but as someone oft accused of having music tastes severely in the past, my favourite two albums being The Fureys, best of compilation ‘ The Spanish Cloak’ and The Pogues ‘Rum Sodomy and the Lash’, suddenly my taste is brought into the 21st century after going to see Lankum live and buying their CD ‘Between Earth and Sky’ at the gig.

Their powerful voices, guitar, uilleann pipes, harmonium, fiddle and accordion create a sound lit in the hearth of tradition and fired up with the sensibilities of injustice whether the tune be their own or one already owned by lovers of folk.

Radie Peat’s haunting voice on traveller traditional ‘What Will We Do When We Have No Money’ and original lament to women’s plight ‘Granite Gaze’ pleasantly weave into the fabric of your mind. Similarly Ian Lynch’s Déanta in Éireann, about Irish emigration is stoked with bitter indignation with a voiced end that has the power of Shane MacGowan’s finish to the ‘Old Main Drag’.

By contrast the Turkish Reville is played with the wildness of Tom Waits’ ‘Frank’s Wild Years’, ‘The Townie Polka’ had me whistling Cormac Mac Diarmada’s fiddle refrain all day at work to the extent that the lads thought I was on a promise and the wit of ‘Bad Luck to Rolling Water’ had me laughing out loud.

Seeing them live had the bonus of hearing Radie Peat and Daragh Lynch rendition of ‘Hares on the Mountain’ and the whole troop thoroughly enjoying themselves singing out ‘Fall Down Billy O’Shea’ that led us all stamping our feet and whooping.

Buy Between Earth and Sky

Here (iTunes, Google, Spotify etc.,)

Contact Lankum

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Named after the the child-murdering villain from the classic ballad, Lankum were originally named Lynched after brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch before changing their name. You can hear their debut album on the Bandcamp player below.

* Thanks to Stephen Francis Bourke for the review and you can check out his great web-zine, Midlife With Attitude here.