Geordie pioneers get set for Wulfrun date

Mercury-nominated folk band The Unthanks will be playing Wolverhampton's Wulfrun Hall on Monday night as part of their 40-date tour to promote their new album, Here's The Tender Coming.

Having established themselves as one of the most innovative and critically acclaimed English folk bands in modern history, The Unthanks, whose admirers include Radiohead, Portishead, Robert Wyatt, Ewan McGregor and Nick Hornby, are ready to risk it all with another audacious step sideways.

While the abbreviated name reflects the long-established reality that the band is co-fronted by Rachel Unthank's sister Becky Unthank, the real development sees an extended line-up that includes string quartet, brass, percussion and tuned percussion, bass.

The Unthanks' producer, Adrian McNally, will also be taking on piano responsibilities from Stef Conner who returns to a PHD, and Winterset key member Niopha Keegan continues on violin.

Known for their timeless, unsentimental and quietly subversive tales of loss, fear, booze, brawels, and sorrow, their new album, as the name suggests, is a calmer, melancholic, and warmer than the intense bleakness of its predecessor, The Bairns, which was nominated for the Uncut Music Prize and Mercury Music Prize as one of the top ten British albums of the year.

Forging links between folk worlds old, new and other, The Unthanks have been described as the inheritors, curators and distorters of Tyneside's traditions.

Catch them on Monday, December 7th, at the Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton.

For tickets call 0870 3207000 or visit www.wolvescivic.co.uk