False Lankum

False Lankum is the fourth studio album by Irish folk music group Lankum, released on 24 March 2023 through Rough Trade Records. It received positive reviews from critics and peaked at number two on the Irish Albums Chart. The album was shortlisted for the 2023 Mercury Prize and appeared on several best-of lists for 2023 albums.

Critical reception
False Lankum received a score of 89 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic based on eight critics' reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". AllMusic's Timothy Monger described the album as a "nihilistic, almost comically bleak trek into the dark heart of folk music" as well as "a difficult but defining statement made at the height of their powers". Jude Rogers of The Guardian felt that it "teems with similar moments of iridescent bliss" and its tracks "also unfurl into each other without a break, alternately lulling the listener then casting them into storms of shuddering sounds". Siobhán Long of The Irish Times wrote that Lankum have "chosen to balance the darkness with copious shafts of light and delicate beauty" and the album "positions Lankum in a space that's utterly their own: delighting in the myriad influences that colour their sound".

Jim Wirth of Mojo opined that the album "offers hurricane-force drama at times" and "also tells a less grisly tale about growing up and realising that your swashbuckling days might be over. If modern folk music needs its own OK Computer, its own The Dark Side of the Moon, or indeed its own F♯A♯∞, this may well be it". Rob Young of Uncut found False Lankum to be "some measure their most ambitious in terms of instrumentation, arrangements and the sheer creation of atmosphere" and stated that the band "have found a convincing way to keep the damn hulk going, stoking the engines of folk tradition and setting course to who knows when". Shaun Curran of Record Collector characterized it as "definitely a demanding listen, but an extraordinary one".

Clash's Craig Howieson wrote that the band "continue to mine some of the finest – and criminally overlooked – songs of folk music's past and tailor them to the zeitgeist", concluding that the album "will one day too become a historical artefact", but "one which will brighten the future of those who devote time to its unique majesty". Ryan Leas, reviewing the album for Pitchfork, called it "spellbinding" and felt that the band "uncovers eerie new depths in centuries-old forms" on an album that "plays less like discrete songs and more as one long fever dream composed of scenes from across centuries".