Irish band among NPRs top 25 albums of 2019 – IrishCentral

Contemporary Irish folk band Lankum.Lankum/Facebook/Photo by Ellius Grace.

Dublin-based band Lankum was named on NPRs top 25 albums of the year.

The contemporary Irish folk group's album The Livelong Day came in at number 8 on the list.

This stunningly beautiful, trance-inducing album record draws heavily on traditional Irish folk music, but with a deep dark Dublin twist. The sound of drones play a central role in the overall tone of The Livelong Day, writes NPR.

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Brothers Ian and Daragh Lynch, Radi Peat and Cormac MacDiarmada create crushing, apocalyptic, layered drones using Uilleann pipes, harmonium, fiddle, voice and more. It has the intensity of electronic music, but this is all acoustic musicin service of songs that are often centuries old.

"The opening track, "The Wild Rover," goes back at least to the 16th century and is often thought to be a drinking song, one you might raise your glass to at a pub, singing, "No, nay, never no more / Will I play the wild rover / No, never no more." But the original intent is that of a temperance song, and that's how Lankum approach it, with a sustained heaviness to match the story's consequence and building sense of regret. The Livelong Day makes the past entirely fresh and present."

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"The Livelong Day" is the quartet's third album.

Originally known as Lynched, after the brothers surname, the group released their debut album "Cold Old Fire" in 2014. The quartet released their next album "Between the Earth and Sky" under their new name in 2017.

The name Lankum comes from the folk ballad "False Lankum," sung by Irish folk singer John Reilly.

More info on Lankum can be found on their website.

The full list of NPR's Best Albums of 2019 can be found here.

Contemporary Irish folk band Lankum.Lankum/Facebook/Photo by Ellius Grace.

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Irish band among NPRs top 25 albums of 2019 - IrishCentral