Album Reviews

Lankum push the boat out with seafaring themes and otherworldly tunes

Songs about treachery and suicide and life’s disappointments see the hard-to-pigeonhole group provide a masterclass in fusing traditional music with avant-garde, ambient and drone add-ons

Lankum: most of their songs have sea-faring themes and some reach the outer limits of conventional track timings. Picture: Sorcha Frances Ryder

Lankum: False Lankum (Rough Trade)

Defining Lankum as a contemporary Irish folk/trad group is something of a misnomer, while labelling False Lankum as “modern folk music’s own OK Computer . . . its own Dark Side of the Moon” (Mojo magazine) might also be unnecessary hyperbole. And yet there is something both dynamic and otherworldly about its songs, most of which have sea-faring themes and some of which reach the outer limits of conventional track ...