Music / Reviews
Review: The Unthanks, Bristol Beacon – ‘A box of wyrd-folk delights’
The Solstice is in just a couple of days. The darkest of days followed by a gradual, slow lifting, when light is, finally, allowed back into the world. It’s a wintery festival full of hope and the celebration of togetherness.
It is entirely fitting, then, that The Unthanks are touring their magnificent In Winter album, just in time to capture the moment between darkness and light.
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Starting with a chilly blast of howling wind, Adrian McNally sits alone at the piano for In Winter’s Night. It skates with a Vincent Guaraldi lightness, snowflakes whirling through the air until the seven other musicians join him.
Rachel and Becky Unthank clutch sleigh bells, Faye MacCalman a saxophone, Niopha Keegan a violin. Guitar, bass and percussion add the deepest, softest, most green needles to O Tannenbaum as the sisters begin their telepathic harmonies.
Dark December and Gower Wassail complete the opening suite and an Unthank winter sparkles all around. It is dark and luxurious, velvet and flock. It is a Narnia carriage ride, swaddled in furs against the cold.
Every track, tonight, is taken from In Winter. there’s no mining of the Unthank back catalogue, but there’s not a single complaint, not a single person who would rather hear anything else. There are snatches of carols, bursts of brass band atmospherics, reminders of Christmases past.
The Carol of the Beasts rumbles with Solstice incantations. This isn’t a gaudy Quality Street Christmas, it’s churning and tumbling, thrilling and slightly frightening. The saxophone and violin swirling the deepest of magic, a box of wyrd-folk delights.
Rachel takes the lead on The Snow it Melts the Soonest and it is beautiful. McNally’s piano twinkles and the whole thing seems to float, violin, clarinet and Dan Rogers’ double bass paper-chain light. They flutter on a real-fire updraft.
The song was learnt by Rachel, in Newcastle, when she was young and she sings it as though it has always been a part of her. Her voice is high, assured, full of cinnamon, gingerbread and magic.
Her sister’s voice is just as lovely. She makes Chris Wood’s Bleary Winter fuzzy around the edges, a winter seen through half-open eyes. Becky has a slight edge, she keeps the saccharine just out of reach and, as the sisterly harmonies are joined by Keegan, the three voices are dizzying.
Keegan’s violin is extraordinary too, earthy and honest but spine-tingling. The song, by the way, was written by Hugh Lupton and if you haven’t read his Assembly of the Severed Head (a brilliant re-telling of The Mabinogion), it’s well worth sticking in your stocking.
The North East’s folk celebration of the season is beautiful, thrilling and frightening in turns
Tar Barrel in Dale is sung entirely unaccompanied, all eight voices harmonising, bringing in the audience. Although how Rachel expects us to match their vocal gymnastics is anyone’s guess.
On River River, Becky reminds us that “this is all that we can treasure”, and she’s probably right. It’s this community, this beauty that we should treasure in winter.
They end with a parting song. Dear Companions is goose-bumping: full of longing and love, full of togetherness. The audience sings again and we understand that the sense of Winter, the sense of friendliness, the sense of Christmas will live on in the songs that we sing.
To the surprise of no one, The Unthanks are the perfect band to stand at the turning of the year. Glorious.
All images: Gavin McNamara
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