The Dublin-based band Lankum achieved wide acclaim for their 2019 album The Livelong Day, which put a heavy, doom-laden spin on traditional Irish folk music. Today they’ve returned with the lead single and opening track from new album False Lankum, and oh lordy me, it’s a stunner. The band has delivered an apocalyptic nine-minute rendition of the traditional “Go Dig My Grave,” a brooding slow-burn that builds to a state of intense droning terror. Matched with director Peadar Ó Goill’s video, it’s among the more haunting works of art I’ve experienced lately.

A statement from Lankum:

Our interpretation of the traditional song “Go Dig My Grave” is one that centers around the emotion of grief – all-consuming, unbearable and absolute. A visceral physical reaction to something that the body and mind are almost incapable of processing. The second part of the song is inspired by the Irish tradition of keening (from the Irish caoineadh) – a traditional form of lament for the deceased. Regarded by some as opening up “perilous channels of communication with the dead,” the practice came under severe censure from the Catholic Church in Ireland from the 17th century on.

Watch below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Go Dig My Grave”
02 “Clear Away In The Morning”
03 “Fugue I”
04 “Master Crowley’s”
05 “Newcastle”
06 “Fugue II”
07 “Netta Perseus”
08 “The New York Trader”
09 “Lord Abore and Mary Flynn”
10 “Fugue III”
11 “On A Monday Morning”
12 “The Turn”

False Lankum is out 3/24 on Rough Trade.