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Review: Rachel Unthank and the Winterset
Their latest album, The Bairns, received a Mercury award recently and I went to see their concert in the Gala Theatre, Durham, on October 19th at the end of their tour. They like to finish at home, close to their roots.I think of these songs as modern day psalms. What I love about the psalms is that they capture the voice of people experiencing life in all its pain and fullness. God is not afraid of human emotions, in fact the inclusion of the psalms in the Bible speaks to us of the importance of bringing our feelings into the light. Buried emotion is just that: buried alive.
The Winterset are psalmists who sing of a world just behind our horizon. A world where men were taken to sea often against their will for months at a time, of children having to help on the farms, of men taking advantage of women, of poverty and close knit communities where death and betrayal frequently occur. This is the traditional Northumbrian folksong full of hinnies, bairns, canny lads and lasses and "gaen oot".
These songs are not "Christian". They don’t mention God, Jesus or worship. What they do express, sometimes with humour in the midst of pain, is the struggle of living in a fallen world. The human condition remains the same whatever the context. Our emotions at troubled times remain relevant throughout the generations and God wants to hear about them so he can be involved in our lives. For this reason, our emotions are holy places and need to find expression. I think that this album, The Bairns, does that beautifully.