Lankum

Even though their latest album is called False Lankum, Ian Lynch, Daragh Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada and Radie Peat never hide their cards. From the opening track of the album, Go Dig My Grave, they are totally upfront: it is an eight-minute journey from the fog of Irish tradition to the darkness of atmospheric noise that already tells you everything about the quartet's universe. Lankum, in short, is a band that doesn't hide... even if it has taken the world a while to discover them.

Some may still consider them a secret, but truth be told, they are an open secret after The Guardian, The Quietus, Uncut and Loud & Quiet chose False Lankum as the best album of 2023. Unanimous recognition (and somewhat belated because it is, in fact, the fourth album of their career) for a particular proposal: the Irish band are folk, which it is impossible to define simply as folk. They are a doom version of The Pogues, Grouper covering Fleet Foxes, a Celtic reconversion of Swans; all at the same time.