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The Unthanks’ voices are hair-raisingly exquisite in the most sororal of ways.
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Musically, there's much greater richness and variety in the arrangements now, heightening the shadings that have always been there, and bringing them to the fore, while also making it easier for a wider audience.
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As good as their 2007 Mercury Prize-nominated album, The Bairns, undoubtedly was, Here’s the Tender Coming raises the standard higher still.
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Yet far from heralding a more obviously commercial taint, major label backing finds them ever more extreme. This album may not be quite as bleak as The Bairns, and the sound is more sophisticated, but they still sound like nobody else.
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Despite personnel changes, Here's the Tender Coming, the Unthanks' third LP, is still steeped in brutal Northumberland lore, and its doomed subjects (drowning sailors, child mine workers, a woman who dies on her wedding day) are well served by the band's dark, gentle strums and ghostly piano lines.
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Here's an album that's even more satisfying, compelling, and varied than the Mercury-nominated The Bairns--though only slightly less bleak.
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Rarely has the deep past sounded so stirring, or so modern. [Oct 2009, p.94]
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MojoAny notions that this [name change]--and additions of brass and strings--is a major label ploy to smooth their edges and distance them from the spiky traditional elements that chracterised "The Bairns" is soon decimated by this new album's equally moody, uncompromising nature. [Nov 2009, p.102]
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The Unthanks prove that traditional acoustic folk music is alive and well today.
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Thankfully aside from a few superficial blemishes, Here’s The Tender Coming’s world is dense enough, and interesting enough to merit a visit.
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