Album Review: Between the Earth & Sky by Lankum

Having changed their name from Lynched for fear of malign associations while touring the US, Lankum have lost none of their skull-splitting intensity in doing so or since signing with indie big hitters Rough Trade. Between The Earth And The Sky is the perfect summation of this extraordinary ensemble - this is music tethered deep in the black, black earth whose only limit is the blue, blue sky. Opening track What Will We Do When We Have No Money? is led by concertina player Radie Peat, whose voice has a rapturous, keening quality that is on a par with the great Irish traditional singers Sarah Makem, and Mary Delany (whom Peat learned the song from).

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T here is folk that wants to whisper in your ear, and then there is the music of Lankum: urgent, desperate and detonating, full of lyrics and sounds smacking together like waves shattering stones in a storm. The latest folk signing to Rough Trade Records (a label delving brilliantly into traditional song in recent years), the quartet - formerly known as Lynched - marry the rawness of the Watersons with the roar of Richard Dawson, and eerie drones plunge their coarse, clattering harmonies further into darkness. What Will We Do When We Have No Money? is a particularly startling opener, Radie Peat's vocals loading the Irish Traveller song with the impacts of poverty and pain.

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