The Unthanks – Here’s The Tender Coming (RabbleRouser/EMI)

The newly-reshaped Unthanks – or Rachel Unthank & The Winterset as was – have rejigged their line-up and tweaked their sound as this third album lands on our desks, appropriately just as the nights draw in and winter sneaks its icy fingers round the door.

Not that this album exactly repackages the bleakness of its predecessor The Bairns but on tracks like Sad February and the wonderfully evocative title track there is a chilly and haunting underbelly that suits an autumn audience’s mindset.

With Becky Unthank now joining sister Rachel on lead vocals, there is a punchier delivery on more straightforward numbers such as Where’ve Yer Bin Dick and the traditional Betsy Bell while the effect is much more beguiling and transcendent on their trademark atmospheric pieces.

Living By The Water is the foremost example of this; the twin voices underpinned by brass and string arrangements are mesmerising. The rootsy harmonies sit easily alongside the storytelling that meanders through these songs, the narration of working-class Northumbrian trial and tribulations given life by the subtle instrumentation.

There is marital tragedy on Annachie Gordon while the bravery of a 17-year-old girl who testified to a Royal Commission on Child Employment in 1842 is given life in The Testimony of Patience Kershaw. The title track evokes the feelings of Geordie men awaiting their summons to war but the overall impression for all this looming lamentation is never quite as bleak as The Bairns due to the lush musical composition and warmth of the singers.

This band’s back-catalogue deservedly earned this most special of folk bands a Mercury Prize nomination and this even more complete and polished work deserves further attention still.

Janet Murray