Gig review: Lankum at Leeds Irish Centre

With the latest albums by Lisa O’Neill and John Francis Flynn both having picked up enthusiastic notices, it’s been a strong year for musicians drawing inspiration from the Irish folk tradition. No one has made the leap from song-sharing sessions at pub backrooms to something approaching mainstream attention with quite as much aplomb as Lankum, however.

To say that the Dublin band have had a successful year would be quite an understatement. Lankum’s fourth album False Lankum has hovered near the top of various Best of 2023 listings, and the album’s mix dramatically reshaped traditional material and equally compelling originals earned the four-piece (expanded to a quintet for tonight’s live show with the addition of a percussionist) a Mercury Prize nomination.

Deservedly so: renditions of traditional folk songs can be so focused on respectful authenticity that it renders the source material musty and stale, like a museum object too delicate to be tampered with.

Ripe with the type of dense drones and ominous noises that are more readily associated with doom metal but also capable of startlingly delicate, minimalist beauty, False Lankum delivers its arcane inspirations a loving boot up the backside, catapulting tales of disaster and woe directly into the present day with their often deeply unsettling power intact (a song where no one dies is a rarity in this company), complete with a bit of vibrant dirt under their fingernails.

Folk music is traditionally a communal enterprise, so it makes perfect sense that Lankum finish off their magnificent year with some touring, including tonight’s superb set at the sold-out Irish Centre.

It’s no surprise that the band seem full of cheer: Ian Lynch (one of the band’s four singing multi-instrumentalists) reminisces about living in the Harehills region back when a tin of beans traded for 9p.

There are amusing anecdotes such as bumping into Sting (whose Black Seam is given the Lankum treatment tonight) that reflect the band’s escalation from folkie margins to the Mercury Prize shortlist.

Judging by tonight’s performance, Lankum’s increasing profile has not been at the expense of their experimental instincts: it’s impressive to find a large, raucously appreciative crowd maintain full concentration as the band’s haunting take on Irish folk standard Wild Rover collapses into an extended subterranean drone.

A tale of supernatural terror and turmoil on sea, New York Trader accelerates into such startlingly cacophonous gallop it’s easy to forget that some sound-bending apparatus aside, there are only acoustic instruments (including a harmonium and what resembles a hurdy gurdy) on stage.

The set peaks with a powerful take on a hypnotic take on desolate murder ballad Go Dig My Grave, which culminates with an orchestra of ominous noise that resembles screeching alert sirens, which seems all too appropriate at the moment.

Next to this, Lankum’s excursions into more conventional folk song forms can seem almost disappointingly normal, despite the haunting beauty of the band’s four-piece harmonies on Cyril Tawney’s On a Monday Morning.