Customer Reviews
Samaritans album of the year ! - By: Arthur Dooley, 26 Mar 2008 
After hearing a lot of good things about Rachel Unthankin the press & catching a couple of promising sounding tracks on Mike Harding's Folk on 2, I was looking forward to hearing The Bairnsin its entirety.
As the finishing bars melted away, I had already lost the will to live & was furiously trying to remember how to fashion a hangman's knot !
This is really, really depressing album. Like June Tabor, Rachel U has a melancholic voice which is perfect for the moody,tragedy of the her songs' subject matter.
Of course death,lost love & regret are stockin tradein Folk music. Unfortunately,Rachel's interpretations makes a traditional mournful ballad like say 'Little Musgrave' delivered by someone like Martin Simpson sound like Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by comparison!
So many tracks sound like real dirges with a gloomy single piano chord counterpointing the dreary vocals.
On one or two tracks where The Winterset chip in, there is the suggestion of something rather more uplifting behind the misery but regretably, these tracks are totally overwhelmed by that bloody plodding piano chord & that lifeless Geordie voice.
Am I being unfair ? Possibly,as someone who is more a fan of what is now termed 'Nu-Folk', the fingerin yer ear traditional stuff quite often leaves me cold. The Bairns is very muchin the conservative tradition.
If people think The Smiths were miserablists then Rachel Unthank makes them sound like a Caribbean steel drum band playing Black Lace's greatest hits !
Stunningly beautiful - By: R. Boden, 05 Feb 2008 
"So we'll cry 'fareweel Regality',
and we'll cry 'fareweel the Liberty',
to honest friends' civility,
to winter's frost & fire"
I brought this album having caught the above snippet of "Fareweel Regality" [Sic.] playing late at night on the Radio. After a deft internet search through songs played that night, I managed to track the song down as coming from this album. Whilst I am quite a folk fan, I'd not heard of Rachel Unthank & The Winterset (fantastic name for a band!) before & so I procured the album. Whilst "Fareweel Regality" is still my favourite track, the entire album is absolutely beautiful. The voices, lyrics, tunes & arrangements are all superb - highly recommended!
Feeling Depressed? Buy This And Feel Worse!! - By: A Music Lover, 24 Jan 2008 Having bought the previous album & found it patchy I bought this & found
it even patchier! To my ears, there're 3 great tracks & the rest are
dirges. Life is depressing enough without having musical accompaniment!
I'd love to hear Rachel Unthank address some uplifting tunes!
Good, no make that very good - By: Gryphon, 14 Jan 2008 
Sleeve notes crediting the stamping of stiletto's as instruments, well that sets the tone. The girls all seem to thoroughly enjoy their music, & it is a pleasure to share their enjoyment with them.
You read so many times of artists being made to do this or that by their record company, &in so doing loosing the essence of what they are. Well that is never going to be something levelled at the Unthank girls & their band. This recording is completely real & totally unaffected by the vagaries of fashion. Well it is after all traditional music & the record industry tends to leave that well alone...thank goodness.
It is a tad darkin places, the subject matter is not conducive to sweetness & light after all. That does not mean it is without power, far from it. It is a truly excellent piece of work, I picked up on Rachels work with the Cruel Sister album, & I was astonished at her youth. The surety of vision inherentin the delivery of the songs on Cruel Sister is if anything exceeded on this offering.
Much has been made of her voice & to be fair she really is much more earthly than angelic. Comparisons to Eliza Carthy are understandable, & probably flatter the girls as they must be fans, but where Eliza is deeply groundedin a traditional delivery, there is something more edgy & modern with the Winterset. It is, as my ladyfriend says, wonderful to hear their North East accent come through, but it is more than that you can hear the girls soulin these records.
It is a thoroughly modern take on a disparate mix of songs from the self penned through the traditional on to the leftfield modern classic. I should say I loath the words FOLK. It has become anathema to so many people, the sound my grandad listens too. Not cool etc. I like to call it Roots music, & boy is this a good rootsy record.
Loath Folk Music? Give this a try anyway, it is that good
Love Folk Music? You will love it
a beneficial gamble - By: Andrew D. Chapman, 10 Jan 2008 i came across this album purely by accident thanks to a copy of the 'Barbican' event mailout brochure. as usual the ad for this album contained many glowing references from a variety of critics & review magazines which i usually dismiss as hollow & empty....but, for some reason i decided to make a purchase & i'm so pleased i did. reminded me a little of Brenda Wootton from up north....
