The route to harmonium
James Yorkston
Keywords
Reviews (4)
The observer
d. 17. Feb. 2019
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Neil Spence
d. 17. Feb. 2019
"One can only admire how the Tyneside group have evolved from their English folk roots to become a cultural phenomenon, charting Northumbrian history from navy press gangs to shipbuilding glory and destitution. Along the way, they have embraced songs by Robert Wyatt and Molly Drake, and added a keen strain of chamber folk to the tender vocal harmonies of Unthank sisters Rachel and Becky. National treasures? Absolutely ... The Brontë set is the obvious headliner [here], setting Emily's poems to music and recording them at the Brontës' Parsonage home using their regency piano. It's haunting - Emily seems half in love with easeful death - but less resonant than its companions. The Sea Is a Woman (...) has Rachel Unthank at her most poignant. The First World War set features singer Sam Lee and a string accompaniment for a Siegfried Sassoon poem. The piano arrangements of Adrian McNally sometimes fly, sometimes plod, but the ethereal sibling harmonies rarely falter".
AllMusic
2019
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James Christopher Monger
2019
"Since emerging in 2005 under the Rachel Unthank & the Winterset moniker, Northumbrian folk group the Unthanks have grown steadily ambitious, adding layers of nuance to their already evocative sound, which trades in jazz, classical, and pop as much as it does traditional English folk music. Lines, Vols. 1-3 continues to look to the past for inspiration, yet it does so with a contemporary flair, deftly utilizing the airy, chamber pop stylings of musical arranger and producer Adrian McNally".
Folk radio UK
d. 30. Jan. 2019
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David Kidman
d. 30. Jan. 2019
"The Unthanks' latest venture, Lines, is a trilogy of three discrete song cycles inspired by poetry, the principal link between them being their focusing on female perspectives across time - those of Hull fishing worker Lillian Bilocca (...), World War One female poets and writer Emily Brontë respectively. It conveniently brings together under one roof three ostensibly quite different commissioned projects from the past five years ... Each of the individual song cycles can be seen as a further demonstration of the persuasive interpretive skills of Rachel and Becky themselves as well as the intense togetherness of The Unthanks as a performing unit, but also, importantly, as a vehicle for the compositional skills of The Unthanks' producer, keyboard player and guiding creative force Adrian McNally ... The sisters' gently expressive performing style allows for discreet nuances in phrasing that reveal a deeper undercurrent in the writing and the sense of commitment and vision of the whole team ensures that the Unthanks standard remains high".
Mojo
2019 March
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By
Colin Irwin
2019 March
"The Unthanks don't do things in halves, or even thirds. This is a trilogy of song cycles inspired by poetry, focusing on works created about the Great War, Emily Brontë and, perhaps best, Maxine Peake's theatrical piece The Last Testament Of Lillian Bilocca, depicting the story of one woman's safety campaign following a fishing disaster in Hull in 1968. The Unthanks sisters admirably translate the atmospheric melancholia of the themes, though it's Adrian McNally's piano arrangements that really carry the day".