The Unthanks
Album: Memory Box
Label: Rabble Rouser
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.the-unthanks.com

This is kinda marketed as the ultimate Christmas gift for the hardcore Unthanks fan - well, it's certainly both highly desirable as a collector's item and as a veritable treasure trove - and yet it's also something of a tip-of-the-iceberg beast, at least as far as purely archive considerations go. It's quite literally a box, and a limited-edition one at that (I'm told that at the present time almost all of the 1500 produced have already been sold as pre-orders - so you'll have to get in quick now!). The box is only available direct from the Unthanks' website and sells for £35, so it's no surprise that each copy is hand-finished and customised for its owner.

What you get for your hard-won cash is actually quite a lot, however. The recorded artefacts comprise an audio CD of Archive Treasures; a 90-minute DVD ("The Unthanks On Film") which includes a feature-length record of the 2011 Mount The Air tour, archive studio footage, the Shipyards film and animated videos for singles; and a 7" Christmas single. These are supplemented by a 60-page Songbook of lyrics including cuttings from the personal songbooks of Rachel and Becky; a blank 30-page Songbook (The Unthanks Unsung); a recipe book (of dishes made at the Unthanks' Northumberland winter weekends); two signed art prints by Becky Unthank and Natalie Rae Reed; two postcards by Natalie; and a handful of snaps and a signed screen-printed card. Additionally, we're told that a scrap book of tour diaries and never before seen photos, which will complete the box, will be released in 2016…

Needless to say, this humble reviewer is not privileged to have received the DVD, nor any of the non-disc components of the box, nor even glimpsed the actual packaging, so this review will of necessity deal exclusively with the one and only element of the package which is available separately: the magnificent Archive Treasures CD. This is an exhaustive 76-minute disc collecting together various rarities alongside a revealing demo and a handful of stupendous exclusive live tracks, the latter all culled from Adrian McNally's recent, essential "housekeeping exercise". Rather than being a "best-of" or "career retrospective or overview" type of anthology, Archive Treasures 2005-2015 (to give it its full title) comprises a small selection of snapshots from the Unthanks' first decade, attempting to round up a number of choice items that up until now have only been available widely scattered across disparate places. As Adrian himself says, "rather than a summary of the last ten years (whole chunks of our history are absent from it), this record is more like the missing jigsaw pieces". This is a great-value disc, and it contains some absolutely spellbinding performances that prove of vastly more than just rarity value. All the while we hear the Unthanks, under the key guiding hand of Adrian, putting into practice their celebrated principle of musical open-mindedness, clear evidence of their receptiveness to fresh ideas and creative influences and a willingness to take chances and weather the consequences, all the while achieving a remarkable consistency of musical and artistic vision.

The CD kicks off with the Christmas single A-side (a cover of the old Pretenders hit 2000 Miles). This is followed by a sequence of live tracks, which starts with a triptych of 2008/2009-vintage "never-before-heard" Winterset recordings (On A Monday Morning, I Wish, I Wish, and Blue Bleezin' Blind Drunk) where the sheer sense of drama is literally overpowering (in all the right ways). These recordings in particular capture the tremendous intensity and commitment, the tangible and at times almost terrifying frisson of the Unthanks' stage act, as well as the astounding precision and professionalism of their musical arrangements. Speaking of which, easily the pick of the final three live tracks, which showcase the resplendent 10-piece incarnation of the Unthanks, is their 2011 Newcastle (Tyne Theatre) performance of Close The Coalhouse Door. Following the sequence of six live cuts, we're treated to a pair of vital radio session tracks - a stunning account of Felton Lonnin and the oft-requested seasonal processional Tar Barrel In Dale (beside which, the aforementioned 2000 Miles sounds positively frothy), and a glorious early (2009) demo version of Queen Of Hearts (three years before it appeared on the album Last). Then comes a trio of studio oddities: the sinuous cover of the Beatles' Sexy Sadie recorded for Mojo magazine's White Album giveaway, a collaboration with Barnsley poet Ian McMillan (taken from Adrian's 2012 album Harbour Of Songs) and the haunting, eerily pacey cover of Peter Bellamy's Kipling setting Oak, Ash And Thorn recorded in 2010 for the Folk Police project of that name). The final item on this CD brings the Unthanks back to their roots with a Hartlepool Folk Club recording of the Unthank Family Band in full flight (song and clogs!). And I'm left wanting more…much more. Adrian also states that "it could easily have been a double CD", so I really hope that signals a further trawl from those archives in due course - though please, without having to wait another ten years!

David Kidman