The Unthanks return with their first album proper since 2011’s beautiful ‘Last’, which showcased not only the beauty of their sound, but a wonderful way of taking real life and making it seem somehow ethereal.
The band have a way of writing music that feels timeless and fascinating. Many of their songs cull ideas, styles and sounds from almost every era of music, hints of everything from historic folk and regional traditional music to the beauty of classic rock. Their palette is full of so many colours.
But it is not these colours which are the most fascinating thing about The Unthanks, but the pictures that they paint with them. Not satisfied with merely picking their way through a number of genres, and trying out the sounds in some hideous amalgam of ideas, they instead create something totally cohesive and immersive.
And this is never truer than on ‘Mount The Air’. Every track here is undoubtedly their vision realised. Despite numerous influences and nods, they never stumble into pastiche. From lush orchestral soundscapes like the two beautiful 10 minute opus’ ‘Foundling’ and the title track – recalling both John Cale’s work with Nico on 1967’s ‘Chelsea Girl’ and Sandy Denny’s lovelorn vocals on Fairport Convention’s amazing ‘A Sailor’s Life’ from their 1969 classic ‘Unhalfbricking’ – to the haunting, bare, heartbreaking ‘For Dad’, The Unthanks never fully fall into the trap of merely reworking the ideas of others.
What is does owe to the past is in its ability to quietly move. Like Richard and Linda Thompson‘s charged 1974 album ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ or John and Beverly Martyn’s bold 1970 record ‘Stormbringer’, ‘Mount the Air’ is an album of two sides. Throughout, many of the songs feel more like duets, or dialogues between two lovers, each telling their own story. And in many ways it is, but the duets and dialogue are not between Rachel and Becky, but actually between the vocals and the wonderfully sombre, light instrumental solo trumpet and violin sections that are scattered throughout.
These moments are truly highlighted on tracks like ‘Hawthorn’ or ‘Last Lullaby’, where the simple and sparse musicianship gives the tracks the most haunting and chilly of feelings, and the ghostly vocals only succeed in furthering this atmosphere.
It is on the truly outstanding tracks ‘Madam’ and ‘Magpie’ where The Unthanks are at their most stunning. These songs bring to mind the ghost of the late but phenomenal Sandy Denny once again. ‘Magpie’ has echoes of her beautiful vocal on ‘Reynardine’, while ‘Madam’ is reminiscent of Denny’s more pointed vocals found on tracks such as ‘The Lady’ or ‘Sweet Rosemary’ from her stunning 1972 solo album ‘Sandy’.
It is when The Unthanks are at their most intangible, when they give the music space to breathe, and the listener time to think, that they are at their most impressive. ‘Mount The Air’ is almost the sound of breathing itself; light, imperceptible and hard to grasp or fathom if focused on for too long. It sounds almost like second nature; nothing here is contrived, as this is how The Unthanks would sound if they had arrived at any point in history.
And that makes ‘Mount the Air’ not just timeless, but also timely, as they have come along now. This is their time.
