Rún’s exhilarating self-titled debut – an alchemic forging of psychedelic doom and dark folk. – Backseat Mafia

The darker hues of metal, folk and other musics enticingly converge on the self-titled album from new Irish trio Rún, released by those perennial psych-rock discoverers at Rocket Recordings. A threesome of significant like-minds, all pivotal to the island’s leftfield scene, Rún brings together vocal artist Tara Baoth Mooney, Dublin composer/performer Diarmuid MacDiarmada and drummer, sound designer and engineer Rian Trench. Besides paths crossing on other side projects in the past, the band have been working more coherently together since 2024 which makes the completeness of their debut both an achievement and a testament to their natural sonic chemistry. Combining Mooney’s vocal artistry, MacDiarmada earthy avant-gardism and Tench’s orchestral dynamism, ‘Rún’ emerges as an ambitious piece of work that’s fortified with remarkable focus and fluency.

Opener Paidir Poball (Pupil) shows the trio’s combined capacity to seamlessly shape shift through the moods. Beginning with Mooney’s delicate madrigal song, shrouded by whispers, harps and an edgy rhythmic grind, the spell set soon gets pummelled by a quaking Doom riff. Feedback circles the marching baritone ranks until, on cue, Tench’s drums tumble in to pound the track forwards. The trudging Krautrock momentum seems relentless but there’s a sudden halt leaving flecks of instrumental debris groaning and broken. Ominous and dark, it’s an introduction which dares you to open up for more.

The dynamic Terror Moon further shows Rún’s fundamental grasp of riffology. Nodding to Goat’s afro-percussive locomotion, PIL’s Flowers of Romance brutalism and The Body’s raw power, the song sees Mooney’s voice haranguing full-throated over a charged electric rock surge. There’s a defiant indignation here, an outrage where the band connect with the Palestinian plight to highlight what for them is “the inhuman treatment routinely inflicted on both human and non-human entities”.

The incandescent Strike It is equally forthright and convincing. A song fuelled by the controversy surrounding the mass unmarked grave of infants discovered in 2017 at Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home, Tuam (Mooney’s home town), requires both clarity and passion. These are fundamentals which are at the core of Rún’s motivation as this incisive skewering religious hypocrisy shows. From Mooney’s yowling “Unholy God” mantra to the pummelling mega chords and seismic crescendo this band can confront real horror and make meaning from it.

It’s clear from this debut that Rún’s feet are firmly planted in the real day to day and their gaze is less swayed by any superficial dark metal iconography. There’s a post-punk integrity underpinning their music which can be linked back to the indispensable soundscapes and motivations of bands like CRASS, The Raincoats and The Slits. That’s not to say that they shun the mystical or otherworldly entirely. Rún also dig down into their folkloric sensibilities to shape their ideas, adding a psychedelic, unrestricted breadth to their music.

The atmospheric Such Is The Kingdom, a prologue to Strike It, is a free-form sound poem where brooding distortion and electronics frame a haunted spoken word. “Let the children come to me” are the last words as the squirms of sound decline. There’s a 23 Skidoo/LCD conflation in the cudgelling agit-funk of Your Death My Body as Mooney’s vocal textures, bitterly sweet then feverishly screaming, ghost from Gallas to Gibbons in a shiver. Her exceptional banshee to balladeer expressionism swoons again on the album’s parting call Caoineadh, where the band have the vision to stretch out and court immersion with a Stars of The Lid zeal. Melding Gaelic melody with a tidal drone and a languid Kosmische bass line, it’s a song which expands illusively. From gently brushed drums and warmer piano chimes to an Axelrod soundtrack finale which decays in a scramble of white noise, it’s an exhilarating close to an exceptional album. ‘Rún’ is the sound of a creative triumvirate with plenty more to say.

Get your copy of ‘Rún’ from your local record store or direct from Rocket Recordings HERE or for physicals go HERE

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