The Unthanks release new album In Winter, today!
Recorded in one wintry week on the North York Moors, The Unthanks' In Winter is an extensive, completist time-capsule of the season, featuring Christmas tunes known throughout the western world, mixed with the traditional and the newly written, all passed with great care and love through The Unthanks filter. With most pieces drifting into the next, In Winter is a dream-like winter fantasia, embracing both the dark and the light in the most ritualistic of seasons. Moving in and out of focus, like a memory, its a bittersweet hymnal to our shared winter experience.
The Wire Magazine's Lucy Thraves is amongst the early reviewers, describing the album as "compelling" and "evocative" and "the familiar made strange", while Vanguard Online say that "the highlights are too many to list.. the arrangements are exquisitely beautiful. The whole is limpidly beautiful, moving and bears listening to repeatedly, such is the simplicity and space in the sound". Silent Radio describe In Winter as "a rare beast that transcends the notion of a Christmas album. While it is not an album for parties, it captures the season with its melancholy and traditions perfectly, the voices and instrumentation acting like a warm coat protecting against the elements."
The album's closing track - and lead single - 'Dear Companions' has been picking up airplay across 6 Music and BBC Radio 2. A parting song that instantly feels like it has always been with us, written by Becky Unthank to the old American folk tune of Nettleton, 'Dear Companions' crescendos towards its end with the voices of 60 devotees, recorded on one of the band’s infamous singing residentials.
The Unthanks continue their Ireland & UK headline tour of In Winter through December. Full dates below. Tickets are available from the band's website.
The Unthanks 2024 headline tour dates
29 Nov - St Luke's, Cork, IE
01 Dec - City Halls, Glasgow, UK
03 Dec - The Glasshouse ICM, Gateshead, UK
04 Dec - Saint Annes Lowther Pavilion, Lytham, UK
05 Dec - City Hall, Hull, UK
06 Dec - White Rock Theatre, Hastings, UK
07 Dec - Assembly Hall, Worthing, UK
09 Dec - Town Hall, Birmingham, UK
10 Dec - Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK
11 Dec - Epic Studios, Norwich, UK
13 Dec - Saffron Hall, Saffron Walden, UK
14 Dec - Royal Hall, Harrogate, UK
15 Dec - New Century Hall, Manchester, UK
16 Dec - The Lighthouse, Poole, UK
17 Dec - Pavilion, Exmouth, UK
18 Dec - St Petroc's Church, Bodmin, UK
19 Dec - Beacon, Bristol, UK
20 Dec - Arts Centre, Pontardawe, UK
21 Dec - Cadogan Hall, London, UK (Evening Sold Out / Matinee On Sale)
22 Dec - The Haymarket, Basingstoke, UK
