The best Irish albums of 2023

30.

girlfriend

To Be Quiet

(Self Released)

The five-piece alt-rock band girlfriend. released their debut album on Halloween 2023, after spending four years in relative quiet prior to last December.

The album To Be Quiet was preceded by with excellent singles like the shoegaze-influenced ‘In Silence’, and ‘Trust’  alongside lo-fi grunge and melodic rock tracks like ‘Repent’.

The 14-track record the band says is “an exorcism of these things that haunt us. Of the pain that comes with being alive now. Above all else, it is a celebration of our friendship and being able to turn pain into something beautiful with your mates.”

29.

Naoise Roo

Emotionally Magnificent

(Schoolkids Records)

Belfast-based artist Naoise Roo‘s second album Emotionally Magnificent  is a followup to 2019’s Lilith.

It’s a record that benefits from its live-in-a-room recorded setup with production by Liam Mulvaney with assistance from Jamie Hyland (Mhaol). Live players include Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox on guitar/bass, Rian Trench on drums/synths and Karl Tobin on guitar. With that fine band of players behind her, Naoise Roo’s melodies are the anchor, the supple and varied voice, that lead the songs in the haze.

Emotionally Magnificent features songs of an alt-rock, noir-songwriting persuasion, like the country-tinged ‘Sacred Cow’ or the anthemic ‘Silent Halls’, and features candid introspective lyrics informed by depression, expectations, navigating womanhood and self-acceptance.

28.

Trá Pháidín

An 424

(Self Released)

The Cork via Connemara nine-piece band Trá Pháidín are a largely instrumental band with roots in Irish trad, post-rock and jazz improvisation. They are the 2023 equivalent of the great Dublin band The Jimmy Cake in spirit, with nods to contemporary Black Country, New Road, and the current crop of new experimental wave of acts.

An 424 is a full-length album written in honour of the bus that goes from Galway city to Connemara, inspired by the change of landscape from urban to rural nature, and features earthy multi-faceted big-band arrangements which soundtrack the transition to such an expanse.

27.

Jape

Endless Thread

(Faction Records)

Richie Egan returns to the melodic pop-leaning sound that he’s most well-known for after some rave and electronic instrumental forays.

The album took the Malmö-based musician three years to make and was inspired by classic song solo records from the ’70s from Paul McCartney (in particular), Judee Sill, Robert Wyatt and John Cale.

Informed by creating music for kids TV shows, there’s a jolting and ultra-melodic theme to the songs Endless Thread, with acoustic songwriting, bright synth-pop and airy arrangements on songs with positive affirmations about being mindful to the pelt of life, paradoxical thought experiments family, and a song admonishing the Catholic Church.

Egan hasn’t lost his gift for creating engaging memorable music “layered with kaleidoscopic oddness,” and if there’s one single takeaway from the record, it’s a reminder to live and revel in the small moments.

26.

Walshy

Few Beers

(Sleepover Club Records)

“The phrase ‘few beers’ simply reminds me of socialising, friends, family and comfort.”

Drawing from hip-hop, bedroom indie, dream pop sounds and beat productions, Dublin musician Walshy’s debut album is a 32-minute “tripped-out tapestry” of an album featuring collaborations with Curtisy (on the excellent ‘mm mm good (in the Cellar)’), lowkick, Domtavlor, Pager The Sloth, XO Lu, Superego and Caleb.

25.

Maija Sofia

True Love

(TULLE Collective)

The Galway singer-songwriter’s debut album Bath Time was concerned with the perspectives and experiences of silenced women.

On album two, Sofia herself is the subject, with thematic subject matter reflecting on traumatic experiences, survival, devotion, loss and the uncomfortable truths gleaned from navigating her twenties.

True Love was recorded by Chris Barry who also plays bass, along with Solamh Kelly on drums, harp by Méabh McKenna, saxophone and clarinet by Ryan Hargadon, Theremin by Ruth Clinton (Landless) and pedal steel by David Tapley (Tandem Felix).

Musically, the smoky combination of harp, organ, harmonium, sax and clarinet and leads to an enchanting and eerie atmosphere over the record, resulting in an avant-garde album that feels like it’s whisking you away into its haunted lair.

24.

Offica

Hokage

(MOVES Recordings)

The Drogheda A92 collective rapper Offica is among the most prominent in the Irish drill scene, if not the breakout star of Irish rap in recent years.

Offica broke through with tracks like ‘Naruto Drillings’ and ‘Plugged In Freestyle’, and has streaming numbers in the millions. He has collaborated with KSI, Fizzler, Reggie, SELLO, Versatile, and his A92 Collective cohorts: DBO Fundz, Ace, Nikz, Trapboy, Ksav and more.

Hokage is the artist’s debut mixtape album, subtitled Hokage in Drogheda, and the focus is on his words (with a few A92 guests) and compounds his establishing sound of anime-infused party drill music with his Yoruba roots, and lighter more personally emotional tracks and lyrics.

A second shorter companion EP called Hokage in Lagos, released a couple of weeks later, nods to his Afrobeat influences and Nigerian heritage).

23.

Autre Monde

Sensitive Assignments

(Popical Island)

A delightfully obtuse second album from the Dublin-based four-piece Autre Monde, who are Paddy Hanna (vocals, keyboards), Padraig Cooney (bass, synth, vocals), Mark Chester (guitar) and Eoghan O’Brien (drums, keyboards, backing vocals). They met through their involvement together in a network of Dublin bands that at one stage or another were central to the Popical Island collective (Skelocrats, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Ginnels, No Monster Club, Land Lovers, the Paddy Hanna band). 

Sensitive Assignments follows its weird and wonderful pathways where-ever this band go.

If the feeling of being trapped in a hall of mirrors narrated by Paddy Hanna on ‘Blue Yodel ’21’, or 90s-indebted synth and REM-esque acoustic pop number ‘Strictly Come Dancing, or the four-part narrative suite about a man’s release from prison on ‘Sensitive Assignment, Parts 1​-​4’ sounds appealing, then this is a record for you.

22.

Kayleigh Noble

Just a Girl

(Self released)

The Dublin R&B pop artist’s debut album orbits the axis of a partner’s toxic behaviour and covers the stages of being in and recovering from a dysfunctional relationship.

The album features production from Dublin-born London-based producer whenthebeatisbad, and collaborations with Dublin’s Prodbymolly, and Rory Sweeney.

 ‘Say Your Grace’,and ‘Just A Girl’ are first half standouts while much of the second half moves towards hedonistic club bangers with ‘duh’ finding Noble relishing feeling in control.

21.

The Murder Capital

Gigi’s Recovery

(Human Season Records)

After the popularity of the blustering post-punk rock of their 2019 debut When I Have Fears, the Dublin rock band softened for album two.

There’s a pleasing looseness and a brightness to the sound of The Murder Capital’s songs from the John Congleton-produced second album Gigi’s Recovery, whether its Britpop-inspired ‘Only Good Things’ , Radiohead-esque ‘A Thousand Lives’, the rock-centric ‘Ethel’, or the retro alt-radio melodies of ‘Return My Head’.

The brighter side of their sound suits them, and better fits the lyrical explorations of desire and love, with an omnipresent male vulnerability and a quest for inner calm.

20.

Travis & Elzzz

Full Circle

(Just Ents)

The Gliders drill rap duo of Travis & Elzzz made history by having the highest charting Irish rap album in February.

Full Circle is also the duo’s debut mixtape, after a few years of carving out their own space in drill, with their boomin’ trading rap verses.

The interplay of the pair’s voices are yin and yang, with Elzzz’s deep voice contrasted with TraviS’ Dave-esque flow fly high as heard on ‘BBB’ and the productions (all by Liam Harris) slap and bang with neon-tinted drill sounds and nods to UK underground bass music. Tunes like ‘Monopoly’, ‘ICL’ and ‘Sorry Not Sorry (Reprise)’ echo the sinogrime productions of Kode9 and Elzzz low baritone sounds like a parallel to the resurgence of vocalist Flowdan on the global dance music scene.

Full Circle serves as a confident planting of a flag in the groundswell of a scene, that feels poised to go even bigger as Irish drill matures into more album releases.

19.

The Scratch

Mind Yourself

(Sony Music Ireland)

It’s hard to encapsulate the hi-octane thrill and poise of the Dublin trad-folk-metal band The Scratch’s live show, but the band do their best effort with their second album Mind Yourself.

With production by James Vincent McMorrow (who loves a heavy tune himself), Mind Yourself features the fast guitar thrills of ‘Cheeky Bastard’ and  ‘Blaggard’, alongside gentle beauts like ‘Trom II (A Slip In The Wind)’,.

Nods to the duelling guitar work of Thin Lizzy can’t hurt and neither can a demonstration of range – as heard on the surprisingly tender autobiographical folk of ‘Shoes’.

18.

Chósta

Twilight Transmission

(Midnight Tapes)

Dublin producer Conor Kelly’s debut album Twilight Transmission takes the concept of a fictional linked network of late-night radio stations broadcasting ethereal and experimental music, inspired by real-life transmissions from outliers Donal Dineen, NTS and Dublin Digital Radio.

That tenet means Twilight Transmission has a suitable nocturnal small hours atmosphere, with gossamer electronic productions that are informed by Dublin locals and feature the Irish voices of Jape and Fears.

17.

Nealo

November Medicine

(Self-released)

November Medicine is Dublin rapper Nealo’s second album, a release in which he ruminates on fatherhood, community, national trauma, a dissolution of a long-term relationship and matters of the heart.

‘Spirit Totem’,  ‘Tears You Cry‘, ‘Only Human’ and ‘Forest’ are among the standouts with Nealo leaning on, and finding strength in his inner circle of friends including Morgana (Saint Sister), Willhouse, Adam Shanahan, Jehnova, Sivv, Rachel McCauley, Shiv and Uly.

16.

Tandem Felix

There’s A New Sheriff In Town

(Self Released)

The second album from Dublin-based songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer David A. Tapley is the followup to 2019’s Rom-Com.

There’s A New Sheriff In Town is the the sound of textured and layered songwriting with a fog of alt-rock atmospherics, with nods to country and guitar music forebearers like Grandaddy, Sparklehorse and Wilco.

There’s a New Sheriff in Town was written and recorded between 2020 and 2022 in Portobello, Dublin and was co-produced with Stephen Dunne. Guest contributions such as B.J. Cole (who played pedal steel on Elton John’s ‘Tiny Dancer’), Ian Romano (Daniel Romano), Neil Dexter (Spies), and Joseph Shabason (Destroyer, The War on Drugs) with Tapley playing every other instrument.

For more on the record, see Tapley’s track-by-track.

15.

Super Extra Bonus Party

Late Nite 99

(Self-released)

Those familiar with the music of the eclectic Kildare band over the years may expect a record of electro indie hip-hop party-poppers, along with instrumental post-rock-influenced jams.

But the last time Super Extra Bonus Party released a full-length record was 14 years ago with 2009’s Night Horses, so there’s been a lot of change.

The SEBP of 2023 is a different beast, featuring four members of the original lineup, with vocals provided in-house for the first time alongside guests from Silverbacks’ Emma Hanlon, The SMC and long-time collaborator Nina Hynes.

In keeping with the passing of time, this is mostly a softer, more mature guitar-lead album feature songs addressing personal turmoil on ‘Line Before The Line’, an attempt to try, and fail to write a pop song in ‘Feather Helmet Repertoire’ and the marching band indie 70s psychedelia of  ‘The Corpse’.

Late Nite 99‘s second half is dominated by more exploratory songs like ‘Paws Of Steel’, ‘Predictions’ and ‘Fumbally Lane’, leaving an impression of a band still eager to explore a fresh palette.

14.

Lisa O’Neill

All Of This Is Chance

(Rough Trade)

The fifth studio-album from the Cavan singer-songwriter finds O’Neill in a more expansive place than the previous sparse singer-songwriter 2018 release Heard A Long Gone Song.

All Of This Is Chance feels less tethered to tradition, with many songs having an orchestral and wonder-filled feel. Highlights include the banjo folk song ‘Silver Seed’, and the Colm Mac Con Iomaire-featuring ‘Old Note – a song inspired by accordion player Tony McMahon, who passed away in 2021.

Other players on the album include Lisa’s long-time collaborator on bass Joseph Doyle, Kerry concertina master Cormac Begley, Kate Ellis of Crash Ensemble, pianist Ruth O’Mahony Brady, drummer Lorcan Byrne, producer Dave Odlum on guitar, Colm O’Hara on trombone, Brian Leach on hammer dulcimer, Mic Geraghty on harmonium and David Coulter on saw.

Lyrically, O’Neill draws inspiration from the Monaghan poet Patrick Kavanagh on opener ‘All of This Is Chance’, and the natural world of birds and bees as on ‘Birdy From Another Realm’ and ‘Old Note’.

All Of This Is Chance is earthy and filled with wonder, as it gazes at the stars.

13.

David Kitt

Idiot Check

(Re:Warm)

After over a decade of making electronic music as New Jackson in tandem with a discography under his own name, David Kitt deftly brings both sensibilities together into the main drag of his singer-songwriter project.

Idiot Check is the Kerry-based artist’s ninth solo album, after 2021’s 20 reimagined retrospective and 2018’s Yous, and has a stated goal of creating “ambient and atmospheric record that puts an eclectic experimental spin on traditional folk music.”

The album was written between 2016 and 2022 in Dublin, Paris, and Ballinskelligs in south-west Kerry, where the artist now lives.

There are nods to Arthur Russell and his own previous work, with the help of Dylan Lynch of Soda Blonde on drums, regular collaborator Katie Kim (OXN) providing backing vocals a few tracks, and notably, the reclusive Canadian singer-songwriter Mary Margaret O’Hara.

Expect experimentally-imbued folk, pop and songwriter songs concerning a recent breakup, superstition, commitment, the socio-political landscape and the dual reward and folly of the creative life.

12.

Bricknasty

Inacrueler

(FAMM)

While Ina Cruler might be classified as an EP release, its 10 tracks and 22 minutes leave a lasting impression that is too good to dismiss.

The Ballymun band Bricknasty lead by Fatboy, with Cillian McCauley, Dara Abdurahman (bass), Korey Thomas (drums) and Louis Younge (sax/keys) – roots itself in the Dublin tower block housing community and throws its arms around those living there with collage and recorded dialogue from friends and family, offering a glimpse of life and times in the Ballymun flats set to jazzy, soulful funk and hip-hop-inspired music.

Live, the band are explosive, but the recorded material like  ‘Ina Crueler’, and ‘fashion’ sticks the landing with a softness to the tapestry of melding styles folding in on each other on record. And guests like Khakikid, Tomike and Chi-Chi add to the richness of this short but memorable release.

For further background into the band, read Fatboy’s Instagram post about growing up in the Ballymun Flats for context for the EP.

11.

M(h)aol

Attachment Styles

(TULLE / Merge)

The intersectional feminist post-punk band M(h)aol’s debut album was originally released in February on drummer Constance Keane’s own TULLE Collective, before a North American release on Merge Records was announced later in the year.

Attachment Styles has lasted over the calendar year because of its blunt songs “about social connection, queerness, and healing… and the various stages of self-acceptance and community-building.”

What that practically means are spiky and dry discordant songs that address male-on-female violence, the patriachy, gender fluidity, bisexual anxiety, the taboo nature of periods, navigating a male-dominated industry and intersectional feminism.

It was announced since, that the band’s singer Róisín Nic Ghearailt would be leaving the group, citing the difficult lifestyle of a touring musician with a chronic condition. The band are continuing as a four-piece for now.

10.

The Mary Wallopers

Irish Rock n Roll

(BC Records)

The Dundalk trad band have swelled from a three-piece that performed at home during lockdown to a full-fledged pint-swilling unit of seven people, and have established touring routes around the UK and Ireland, and further afield to, Europe and North America.

The second album Irish Rock N Roll features ‘The Blarney Stone’ and live favourite ‘The Holy Ground’ and finds the band encapsulating on record, the sound of band emboldened and strengthened by time on the road since the release of their self-titled debut.

That means a more rabble-rousing diddley-eye release, and perhaps a more traditional folk album of the genre, with the band emerging as frontrunners of the modern batch of Irish artists to carry the spirit torch of the Dubliners, with good grace, humour and tunes to boot, but not without rallying against the church (‘Gates Of Heaven’) or dipping into the emotional Pecker Dunne ballad ‘Wexford’. 

8.

Soda Blonde

Dream Big

(Overbite Records)

The second album from the Dublin alt-pop band Soda Blonde finds the band continuing to flesh out their own take on gliding synth-pop music.

With guitarist (and video director) Adam O’Regan, drummer Dylan Lynch and bassist Donagh Seaver-O’Leary working the arrangements with a more gilded edge, Faye O’Rourke’s ever-engulfing voice wraps around the foursome’s luscious alt-pop songcraft.

As demonstrated on songs like ‘Boys’, ‘Bad Machine‘ and ‘Midnight Show’.

The band say the title of the recored Dream Big is also a mantra… “… a mission statement from four lifelong friends. It’s their promise to themselves, and a message to all who come along for the ride: A reminder that life is precious, fragile, and fleeting, so we might as well dream big and hold nothing back.”

7.

Citrus Fresh

Good Grief

(Self released)

Limerick rapper Citrus Fresh‘s album Good Grief may only be 18 minutes long but its eight songs pack a punch, and took 18 months to make.

Executive produced by 40hurtz and Citrus, with production also by Rory Sweeney (‘Wrastling’) and godw1n (‘Commital’), and guests Curtisy and Strange Boy, Good Grief is informed by the wave of grief of his cousin’s passing, with Citrus’ trademark Limerick twang rapping / half-talking over woozy beat instrumentals, as heard on the Cannibal Ox-style ‘Chinese Airmax’.

6.

CMAT

Crazymad, For Me

(AWAL)

If the debut album – If My Wife New I’d Be Dead – from the Irish country alt-pop artist CMAT established her melancholy pop and wickedly funny lyric-writing bonafides, the followup album doesn’t deviate far from the template, but that’s no bad thing when the songs are as good as they are.

Crazymad, For Me is largely pre-occupied with picking apart an old relationship, with the benefit of self-confidence, self-worth and hindsight, an “abstract break-up” album.

The songs are slightly countrified and devastating in their intent or storytelling prowess that could make you laugh out loud and/or stare right into your soul, as Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson picks apart the toxicity and estrangement of how she was wronged, with a chipper melody, and a pop culture reference never far away.

It begins like the first album did with a song named after a mythical, but real American place, ‘California’ finds CMAT escaping a relationship to dream of a life captured on celluloid, before the quiet devastation of songs like ‘Rent’ explores the gaslighting and comparisons to other women.

“I found lashes on the DVD case, you said they were mine, said they were mine Never my style, but I didn’t wanna get on your wrong side.”

Highlights include the singles ‘Stay For Something’,  the John Grant classic-pop assisted ‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’, ‘Have Fun!’ and ‘Whatever’s Inconvenient‘, all of which benefit from the full album placement.

CMAT began her career describing herself ironically, as “a global pop star” but the excellent songwriting and vocal performances on Crazymad, For Me are further proof that punchline is increasingly becoming reality.

5.

Kojaque

Phantom Of The Afters

(Soft Boy Records)

Every week, when I write up 10 or so Irish tracks, there’s invariably at least one artist featured who identifies as an Irish-born London-based musician.

The second album proper from Kojaque, after 2021s Town’s Dead, and the 2016 Deli Daydreams mixtape, finds the Irish artist wresting with being one of the people who have “taken the soup”, and moved to London for art’s sake.

To “take the soup” in Ireland’s famine past, generally meant renouncing your Catholic faith in favour of English Protestantism in times of desperate hunger.

In a modern context, “taking the soup” is emigrating from Ireland for London for more opportunity. A chant of “Jackie took the soup” sets the album’s scene.

Wearing the alterego of Jackie Dandelion, a character named after the Fontaines DC song ‘Jackie Down the Line’ with the artwork modelled on bigoted depictions of Irish people in 19th/20th century Punch Magazine cartoons further underscores the theme.

Phantom Of The Afters is haunted by that very modern decision with track two ‘Larry Bird’ sticking the theme through a fever dream rap on the short flight over to Stansted.

Guests include Wiki, Biig Piig, Charlotte Dos Santos, Gotts Street Park and Sammy Copley with the razor-sharp production by Calvin Valentine, Tony Seltzer and Karma Kid.

London voices, observations and references are the backdrop to Kojaque’s ruminations on the physical, social and cultural disconnect of being Irish living in London throughout the album, touching on past relationships, childhood and wallowing in loneliness and homesickness through the modern immigrant lens.

“Think of me Ma and the guilt goes through me / These toffs don’t get my jargon.

Phantom Of The Afters speaks to the thousands of young Irish people who can relate to the volatility of starting a new life elsewhere, and the subsequent guilt, while feeling the invisible thread tethering you to your friends and family back home.

4.

Natalia Beylis

Mermaids

(Touch Sensitive)

“It was a rainy day at the recycling centre in Leitrim. There, amongst the tangle of discarded kettles and broken-down toasters, I first laid eyes on her…”

The Leitrim musician and sonic artist Natalia Beylis’ Mermaids is inspired by the sounds that the musician coaxed from a CRB Elettronica Ancona – Model: Diamond 708 E electric keyboard that was salvaged from a Leitrim recycling centre. The album’s other chief inspiration is an old family photo of her mother and two friends (which is also the cover for the record and informs the title).

“The sounds that come from her when I play always move me like water; swimming in rivers and floating in the murk beneath the surface,” Natalia said of the instrument.

The ambient release soars through its limitation with tracks like the opener ‘Afloat In Fog And Feathers’ offering a slow dive into a subaquatic ambient world, while the 17-minute title track repeated its synth notes yet, like the album rich with gentle detail, warm tone and siren call.

3.

John Francis Flynn

Look Over The Wall, See The Sky

(River Lea)

The second album from Dublin folk singer John Francis Flynn Look Over The Wall, See The Sky marks a shift from his 2021 debut I Would Not Live Always, in that it takes very recognisable trad and folk songs like ‘The Zoological Gardens’ and ‘Dirty Old Town’, and lives up to the idea of true interpretation, recontextualising old Dublin-associated songs with modern techniques.

Flynn likes to follow the song wherever it takes him using his booming baritone to lead the way among instrumentation that has developed into a natural place where analogue tradition and digital experimentalism combine with a natural ease.

Flynn is joined by Brendan Jenkinson, Ultan O’Brien, Ross Chaney (Tascam tape loops), Caimin Gilmore, Davy Kehoe, Romain Bly, Seamas Hyland, Kaija Kennedy and Colm O’Hara.

Dips into creaking stringed instrumentation (and a pleasing higher register) on ‘The Lag Song’, the frantic psych-folk on his version of American anti-establishment folk song ‘Mole In The Ground’, the percussive bombast of ‘A Mile From Dublin’ and the woozy dirgey atmosphere on ‘Kitty’ are among its highlights, but Look Over The Wall, See The Sky is best listened from start to finish for its fully-realised vision.

2.

Rachael Lavelle

Big Dreams

(Rest Energy)

There’s probably no Irish artist on this list as adept at creating world-building magical castles in the sky as Rachael Lavelle.

Big Dreams makes good on the artist’s long-standing promise, as a singular talent, with an ability to create unique liminal spaces for her off-kilter yearning compositions and engulfing vocals, that nods to forebearers like Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush and a contemporary like Weyes Blood.

Big Dreams features the singles – ‘Let Me Unlock Your Full Potential’, ‘Perpetual Party’ and the title track. Self-help guidance is offered throughout from Luas light rail announcer Doireann Ní Bhriain, adding to the album’s literally transportive daydream feeling.

It is very easy to feel pleasantly unmoored in the album’s avant garde instrumentation, with Lavelle aided by close collaborator Ryan Hargadon, yet there’s plenty of real-life grounding in the emotive lyrics, with the singer seeking solace in a warm bath, a cold pint, the company of another, a chicken fillet roll, or escape from loneliness.

Like on the highlight of ‘Night Train’ – “come and fill the vacancy of hope / here lies the address / soften in sadness / Come and sing the Orinoco Flow.”

Like much of Lavelle’s work, it’s often a plea for a simple thing – intimacy, closeness, comfort – relayed in grand musical gestures with a Romantic-era sensibility.

1.

Lankum

False Lankum

(Rough Trade)

The Dublin trad-band’s Lankum’s fourth album picks up the darker threads of their previous 2019 effort The Livelong Day.

That album begins with ‘The Wild Rover’, a tense and dark growing thing. False Lankum begins in similarly epic fashion, with ‘Go Dig My Grave’ swelling to a deeper drone, with an intense cinematic vision to match its grief-stricken lyrics, lead by Radie Peat’s magnetising keening vocal performance.

False Lankum finds Cormac MacDiarmada, Radie Peat, Daragh Lynch and Ian Lynch (and producer John “Spud” Murphy) digging deeper into the dynamics, with world-building doom-folk that sinks into its mire on more than one occasion.

Master Crowley’s’ is the best demonstration of this idea, as a traditional song gets pulled into quicksand and an empty void of steel clanks and noise engulf the reverbed song in its entombed pit.

“We wanted to create more contrast on the record so the light parts would be almost spiritual and the dark parts would be incredibly dark, even horror inducing.

And that is what they have done really effectively throughout, as tracks like the Cormac MacDiarmada-fronted ‘Lord Abore and Mary Flynn’ and the Daragh Lynch-sung ‘On A Monday Morning’ bring a softness and new shade to the band (the album features 10 trad songs with two originals – ‘Netta Perseus’ and ‘The Turn’, written by Daragh Lynch).

These songs by the first-time Lankum singers are among the album’s highlights, surrounded by transportative tracks like ‘The New York Trader’ and the Radie Peat-sung ‘Newcastle’.

False Lankum has been called folk’s OK Computer, and compared to Godspeed! You Black Emperor and Scott Walker, and such high praise that suggests just how lauded Lankum’s music is increasingly becoming internationally. False Lankum is the sound of an Irish band stoking the fire of trad and finding ever-more illuminating ways to tell old stories.