"[1] Joe Breen, writing in The Irish Times, also gave the album five stars, describing the Unthanks' Mount The Air as "their most ambitious work" and saying that it "places them in the same league as the likes of The Gloaming and the Punch Brothers".
[2] In a four-starred review for the Financial Times, David Honigmann said: "Once a bleak Northumbrian chamber folk outfit, the Unthanks have reinvented themselves on a symphonic scale, as witness the 10-minute title track, ushered in on harps and with an orchestration that recalls Gil Evans’s work for Miles Davis.
"[3] Robin Denselow, in a four-starred review for The Guardian, said: "This is a return to the gentle melancholia of Last, and while there are fine vocals from the Unthank sisters, the dominant figure is Rachel’s husband, Adrian McNally, who plays keyboards and percussion, and produced and wrote much of the music... It’s a lush, often exquisite set".
"[24] In a four-starred review, Chris White, for MusicOMH, said that Mount the Air "continues The Unthanks’ journey away from the traditional north-east folk of their earlier albums towards a style that's uniquely their own.
It's hard to think of another group anywhere who are creating music quite like this; still grounded in the sounds and spirit of their native region yet compositionally on a different planet to the pub back room strums and ceilidh jigs knocked out by most of their contemporaries.
"[6] Also giving the album four stars, Thomas Ingham, writing for The Skinny, praised "the swelling and soaring arrangements of Adrian McNally, who manages to merge folk with the unease and medieval European gloom of recent records like Last Ex and the infamous In the Aeroplane Over the Sea".
"[26] Describing the album as "a floating, swirling, blend of folk, indie-rock, and jazz", Russ Coffey, in a four-starred review for The Arts Desk, said: "Adrian McNally's piano motifs... bring a Wyatt-like warmth.
Similarly, Tom Arthur's free-form trumpet lines add a lovely sense of yearning... Mount The Air is, above all, Adrian McNally’s album and shines brightest where his arrangements are at their most ambitious.