If you thought dark folk couldn’t get any darker, Michael Beirne’s seminal single, The Doctor., takes the listener to the genre’s most shadowed corridors. Taken from part 1 of his two-part LP The Haunted, The Doctor. is part of a larger chapter narrating an emergence from depressive, anxious, psychotic & sinful patterns of thought into hope & forgiveness.
Drawing inspiration from his Catholic faith, Beirne fuses religious iconography with motifs from avant-garde compositions which echo Glenn Branca, creating an eerily electrifying soundtrack to your darkest installations of introspection.
Vocally, Nick Cave meets Jim Jones to instil intensity around the pseudo-rap cadences which serve as dark sermons, resonating through the brooding production through which Michael Beirne cements himself as one of the most fearless figures in the contemporary alternative folk scene.
His ability to fuse experimental soundscapes with deeply personal themes, all while avoiding the genre’s clichés, shows just how much he’s evolved since his early days of experimentation.
The sombre tones may be all-consuming, but Beirne’s ability to make the descent into the abyss feel like a cathartic act of faith is nothing short of divine. If this is what Beirne can accomplish while staring into the void, we can only imagine what’s next.
Stream The Haunted Album, Pt. 1 and Pt. 2 in full on Spotify now.
Review by Amelia Vandergast