Album Review: Lankum, Live In Dublin

Recorded across three sold-out nights at Vicar Street, Lankum’s Live in Dublin features performances from across the doom-folk outfit’s daring discography, as well as their previously unreleased take on the celebrated standard ‘Rocky Road To Dublin’.

The four-piece – Daragh Lynch, Ian Lynch, Cormac MacDiarmada and Radie Peat – let the seams show on Live in Dublin, replete with unedited banter between songs and uproarious applause. The live energy hits you right between the eyes, in a way that the studio recordings, exquisite as they are, cannot.

“The rift in the space-time continuum is behind you,” declares Ian Lynch, as the band move between two mammoth False Lankum offerings, ‘On a Monday Morning’ and ‘Go Dig My Grave.’ It’s a fitting admission for a band that so boldly straddles the line between tradition and modernity.

Radie Peat’s iridescent, steel-wooled voice is at the centre of songs like ‘The Wild Rover' – tapping into their bones, then cutting wider. Emboldened by Cormac MacDiarmada's spine-chilling fiddle, it can feel at times like an incantation.

Traditional music is the beating heart of Ireland’s sonic identity, but few contemporary artists seize upon the genre’s darker powers with such intensity and urgency as Lankum. Live in Dublin serves as another vital contribution to their transcendent discography.

9.5/10