Vinyl Record
Lankum - The Livelong Day
Lankum - The Livelong Day on 2LP vinyl. A 2019 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.
2LP ยท 2019
Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.
Buyer notes: 2019 2LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.
The Livelong Day is the 2019 record where Lankum's darkness becomes architectural. Between The Earth And Sky had already shown how far the group could pull Irish folk toward drone and social unease, but this album moves with a heavier sense of patience. The Wild Rover is stripped of pub familiarity and rebuilt as a slow reckoning; The Young People turns a Dublin song by Diarmuid Breatnach into a devastating account of grief, emigration and city life; Hunting the Wren draws ritual violence into a stark winter light; Katie Cruel and Bear Creek let the band's American and Irish strands cross without softening the mood. The arrangements are unhurried because the songs need pressure, not decoration. Voices, pipes, fiddle, concertina and harmonium gather until the album feels like weather coming down.
The Livelong Day matters because it cemented Lankum's reputation as the rare folk group able to sound ancient and radical at once. Its 2019 arrival made clear that their drone-heavy approach was not a novelty but a fully formed way of hearing inherited songs.
For many collectors this is the essential Lankum entry point: less monumental than False Lankum but already severe, beautiful and unmistakable. It is a record to own for the versions of The Wild Rover and The Young People alone, though the whole sequence gains power as one listen.
Drone-weighted Irish folk with mournful harmonies, stark ballads, low harmonium, pipes, fiddle, ritual pacing and a bleak emotional glow.
Recommended for: Listeners who want the clearest entry into Lankum's modern folk sound; Collectors of dark acoustic albums with slow-building force; Fans of traditional material transformed through drone and grief.
What year was The Livelong Day released? The Livelong Day was released in 2019. What makes this version of The Wild Rover different? Lankum slow it down and remove the singalong ease, turning the song into something heavy, reflective and almost funereal. Is The Livelong Day a good first Lankum album? Yes. It gives a strong first picture of their voices, drones, traditional roots and willingness to make folk music feel physically intense.