You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.

This album was first released in 2015, but is now being made available in a limited vinyl format. The follow-up to the band’s 1973 debut Strong In The Sun – yes, a 42-year gap between albums! – on the surface The Dark Dance is a gentle acoustic glide. However, if you dig a little deeper, then the duo of Leo O’Kelly and Sonny Condell is certainly whimsical, but they also have wit and a pleasing edge. This gives songs like You In Yellow, Sympathetic Love and Time Is Gone a depth that many might overlook on first listen. It has a well balanced sense of rhythm and touch, as the band tell stories within the confines of tracks that are never allowed to meander. In this fashion, Tír na nÓg are traditional folk artists, troubadours travelling from town to town recounting their experiences through music. But don’t underestimate what O’Kelly and Condell can achieve with just a guitar and percussion because they have a passion for mixing complexity with simplicity in a fashion that never appears forced. The Dark Dance is modern in its approach, but it also has a firm connection to the 70s. It works brilliantly today.

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.