The Lankum/Landless link-up lingers long and large for another Spud Murphy helmed masterclass of dark folk.

Release Date : 11th July 2025

Label : River Lea Records

Format : CD / vinyl / digital

drone led dramatic song from Dublin

Another day, it seems, and another Lankum adjacent record pours out the presses, such is the current momentum within the Dublin factories of drone led dramatic song. To be fair, much of this is down to the studio determinism of John ‘Spud’ Murphy, Lankum‘s producer and of just about everything else hailing out of that fair city, this included. Plus, for accuracy, it has been, ooh, at least a couple of months since he produced Varo‘s The World That I Knew.

But more than merely Murphy on the dials, Poor Creature includes, as a player, Cormac MacDiarmada, Lankum’s fiddle man, tagged in with Ruth Clinton, one of the four singers from peerless new interpreters of Irish song, Landless. (And guess who was producer for their last album, Lúireach, too? You got it!) Initially just the duo, they are now joined by John Dermody on drums, himself part of Lankum’s live show.

Their sound got a hint of what may be in store from their guest appearance on the Varo album mentioned, but that doesn’t give true justice to the unadulterated sonic of what they can deliver alone. which becomes immediately obvious, as Adieu, Lovely Erin sears out the speakers. All drums, drones and Clinton’s misty vocals, it gradually expands with a vibrant clatter. Pipes and strings become slowly discernible in the wash of sound. A treated banjo begins a processed plink, the arrangement lapping around Clinton’s voice, if never swamping it. Fuzzed bass begins to utter a slow repeat, and, a smidge under six minutes, the bar is set high.

Discordant strings simmer and shimmer

Sepulchral pipe organ, the Hohner Organetta, introduces Bury Me Not, next up. Clinton sings as if in a crypt, such is the eerie echo. In dances Dermody, with a swaying pattern of thump, and it becomes a waltz, as industrial noise churns in. For all that, there remains a lightness of touch, courtesy the vocal cadence, pitched midway between Radie Peat and Sinead O’Connor. Dermody remains in pole position, as he pummels into The Whole Town Knows.

If you have an Irish auntie, she’ll know this one, from the repertoire of the kitsch country and Irish charms of Philomena Begley. It sounds little like this, but is the opportunity for MacDiarmada to join in for the full Ray Lynam. He has what I would call a rusting, weathered tenor, and it is an attractive foil for the crystalline purity of Clinton. The accompaniment is little more than a drone, within which strings simmer and shimmer discordantly, with a lengthy instrumental coda to keep you, if you can, in the zone. Oddly, the same demand asked by Roxy Music in The Bogus Man.

mood lifting

Loreen lifts the mood, a vintage Louvin Brothers ditty, and the nearest to orthodoxy thus far. MacDiarmada takes the lead for this, with a fingerplucked delivery against a moody synthdrop. As with his “other” band, it is the contrasts between these simpler expressions and the the darker forces at large elsewhere, that proves so attractive and so captivating. The lull is shortlived, mind, as An Draighneán Donn wobbles inward, a waking dream of half-remembered melody and church bells, dropping suddenly, a few moments in. Sinuous double tracked vocals, from Clinton, vie then with each other to carry the tune in one direction against another, with a harmonium slowly bleeding out. A wonky processional of possibly brass, possibly accordion, then takes up the challenge. Deeply unsettling in, sort of, a good way.

A C&W nursery rhyme for the damned

The title track returns to their heavily echoed version of the tradition, heavily echoed vocals over electronic FX, a C&W nursery rhyme for the damned, that becomes a further wonky march. Hick’s Farewell features 4:4 folk-rock drums to please the elders, ahead of morphing into doomcore. Clinton sings like a banshee diva, as effects effect into dirge. Suddenly the influence, yes, really, of the Hammer house of horror soundtrack department becomes clear, as what then reveals itself as organ peals in. The organ of Dr Phibes, at that, the whole redolent of a (the?) carnival of souls. The shortest offering here, is this the key to the Poor Creature’s vibe?

The sound of lost souls

The final piece is Willie O, which isn’t, as hoped, Willie O’Winsbury, It is, however, from the tradition, a song known also as Bay Of Biscay or, intriguingly, Willie The Waterboy. If Winsbury not, it is certainly winsome, and Clinton carries it convincingly over several verses, a night visiting song needing little other than the eerie hauntological backing offered. However, at the half way mark, eerie ululations make themselves known, neither quite vocal and nether quite instrumental, the sound of those lost souls once more.

This is a stunning exposition of the PC modus operandi. Clinton is entrancing, sucking you into the abyss. Oo-ee-oo squared, it draws into a never more something wicked this way comes finale, as Dermody sets up a rolling repeat of rhythm. If I noted, before listening, this track, at 10 minutes, may be too long, now the realisation is that it could even be not long enough.

If the world has yet to realise the strength and breadth of the musics being brewed up in the lofts and basements of Dublin, the world needs now to listen. To be filed alongside anything and everything Murphy related and played loud and often.

The Whole Town Knows might be as good a place as any…………….

Poor Creature online : Website (Ruth Clinton) / Facebook / Instagram

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