The Unthanks - thanks very much

Lots of visitors are arriving here after searching for The Unthanks new album, Here's The Tender Coming, so I thought I'd share my opinions with you.

I heard of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset, as they were formerly known, via a cheap CD of up and coming folk acts a couple of years ago. I listened to their first album, Cruel Sister, and marvelled at the sound, the songwriting, the lyrical insight gained from singing about everyday life, then I put it away, because the bleakness of it all was too much even for a hard-bitten rodent such as myself.

However, snatches of lyrics kept coming to me as I performed the tasks featured in the songs - work, commuting, lonely evenings, and I gave in, only to discover that there's a warmth in the songs' appreciation of our shared experiences which I hadn't previously noted.

So that was their early music. Here's the Tender Coming is one for those of you with a sunnier disposition. Obviously this is relative: they're still a Northern folk troupe, but the mood is more melancholic than downright harsh than the second album, The Bairns, and the instrumentation is much more lush.

So yes, double thumbs up for the Unthanks. Give them something to smile about…

Another tree falls for my addiction

Having packed 40 boxes of books with more to come, you'd think that I'd have learned a lesson about my habit.

You'd be wrong. Two excellent books in the post today: Francis Wheen's history of the 1970s and its weirdness (Strange Days) and Iain Banks's Transition, which looks interesting because it looks like a mix of his literary material (always published as Iain Banks) and his science fiction (published as Iain M Banks). I also received the latest The Unthanks album, Here's the Tender Coming: hard-edged, often unsettling North-East folk music.

Meanwhile, I've been to a very stimulating Shakespeare lecture, and occasionally put my oar in. At least, I thought it was stimulating. Some of my readers were present, so I'll leave the critical judgement to them.