Review: Lankum, SWX – ‘There was ecstasy and chaos on the dance floor’

Last time Dublin’s Lankum found themselves in this fair city, in that pre-pandemic otherworld of 2019, they had squeezed themselves into the cosy and sweaty environs of Fiddlers.

This show has sold out so swiftly at Trinity that it has been shifted across town to the significantly larger stage of SWX to accommodate demand. Things are clearly on the up.

They have a new record – False Lankum. Enthusiastic doesn’t begin to describe the reviews; album of the month all over the place; it’ll be in all the right lists come year end.

It’s a truly extraordinary listen. One of those rare, rare records that sounds like nothing else. This is a new thing, built from a very old thing.

In my record buying lifetime, I can think of only a handful of albums that sound so very ‘other’ on their release, you can hear the sources but something absolutely original has been found.

Their songs are drawn from the Irish experience of conflict, colonisation and migration. They are collectors, historians and custodians of this tradition.

Source material of the songs played tonight can be traced back to 15th century. This is deeply soulful music with a whole nation’s history embedded deep within it.

The sea, the supernatural and the land are our constant companions on tonight’s musical journey. The body count is considerable. Eurovision this is not.

Sitting alongside all that past is the utterly contemporary sound world that Lankum, with their producer Spud Murphy, have concocted.

You can draw lines back to the great crossover Irish bands of the last century – Planxty, Moving Hearts, The Pogues – but the atmospheric and engulfing sonic world of tonight draws just as much from David Lynch sound designs, the drones of death metal and the most innovative art rock of recent times from the likes of Scott Walker or our own beloved Portishead.

They open with The Wild Rover, rescued from the pub singalong to its original mournful setting.

As the instrumental section builds Ian Lynch is already kicking up an ominous and dread-filled storm with his table of electronics, pipes and various ancient-looking instruments.

Cormac Mac Diarmada takes his first lead vocal on Lord Abore and Mary Flynn, a ballad of Scottish origin.

He deftly guides us through the delicacy of his guitar part as the power of the tale evolves to its tragic conclusion, Radie Peat joining for the subtlest of harmonies.

The emotive response from the room is palpable.

On a Monday Morning is the rawest evocation of post weekend blues. The most straightforward sounding tune in tonight’s set.

Daragh Lynch leads us through those soggy, bus queue downers with the most intimate guitar with the sonics of the rest of the ensemble weaving behind.

Their set reaches its climax with new album opener Go Dig My Grave. Peat delivers an extraordinary vocal that manages both measured restraint and ecstatic freedom, sometimes within the same line.

The instrumental section is symphonic and demonic. The very darkest of hell’s noises.

Before their final rapturously approved bow, they edge and tease us from the darkness of Hunting the Wren to the concluding triumphant and celebratory reel of Bear Creek.

There is ecstasy and chaos on the dance floor. The crowd moving with them as they drive the rhythm on to greater and greater intensity.

They were good. Where they go next who knows, but for now they are the most exciting thing around.

Bristol will have to find another even bigger stage for them next time. But in that lies another heap of stories.

Main photo: Martin Siddorn

Read next:

• Review: Rachael Chinouriri, Strange Brew – ‘She had the audience in the palm of her hand’
• Review: Belinda O’Hooley, St George’s – ‘She stops the whole of St George’s in its tracks’
• Review: Laura Cortese and Friends, The Folk House – ‘Cortese injects pure sunshine’

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