The oh-so close-to-being-the-pin-up-boy of folk music, Devon's Seth Lakeman has come a long way since his album of 2004, Kitty Jay, was released on a minuscule £300 budget, but to much acclaim. Recorded in his kitchen (as was his 2002 debut, The Punch Bowl), it went on be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. It didn't win, of course, but the Mercury people knew that here was something a little special. This young, driven and passionate performer, helping to bring back folk to its roots, after the unadventurous and unsuccessful forays into pop-folk, experienced by the band Equation, a group signed to a major label, and that included Seth, as well as his two brothers, Sean and Sam, and a very young Kate Rusby.

Kitty Jay also established Lakeman's writing style, one that is more concerned with motifs and repetition, rather than orthodox songwriting craft. Indeed, his songs speak of the ancient, such is their raw, visceral and simplistic hues and tones. But while his albums normally consist of all original compositions, this time he has reached out to the deep traditional songbook of the UK and America, bringing back to life four songs that he has stamped in his idiosyncratic style, producing up-dated versions that sit snugly with seven originals.

With Ballads of the Broken Few he has once again tried something a little different. Firstly by bringing in big-name producer Ethan Johns, and also working very closely on all 11 tracks with the intuitive female vocal trio Wildwood Kin, made up of two sisters, Emillie and Beth Key, and their cousin Meghann Loney; their angelically lush tones contrasting with the more gritty voice of Lakeman.

Moreover, Lakeman's experimental and adventurous bearing has seen him go to unusual places to record in the past, not including the aforementioned kitchen! He used a disused copper mine and cooperage (Tales From The Barrelhouse), whilst utilising loads of food instruments there including anvils, whilst his last album, Word of Mouth, was recorded in a Cornish church.

For Ballads of the Broken Few, Lakeman, Wildwood Trio and Johns went to a great hall of a Jacobean Manor House, in effect delivering a rustic and rootsy contrast to the opulence of the setting. And while the expansive-yet-folksy Word of Mouth was a collection of mini-musical biographies of colourful west country characters, the new album is more in the tradition of old bluesmen and balladeers, and is his most stripped back and rawest affair since Kitty Jay; where the groove and feel is more important than any notions of modern songcraft and added trimmings. There is a spiritualist quality to the album; gospel, American spirituals, ritualistic chain gang, country, esoteric British folk and his trademark stomps inform the album, ultimately offering a cohesive fluidity. This transatlantic marrying of styles and content is largely a success, in its distillation and evocation of the essence of old folk music.

"A man sits on the porch and taps his feet / Strikes his old string box in the sultry heat / Like a million times before / He kicks the red dust from the floor" sings Lakeman on Fading Sound; strident guitar, backing vocal embellishments and, a neat touch courtesy of Ethan Johns, a hurdy gurdy, provides perhaps the most 'pop' moment of the album, along with the country-flavoured ‘Meet Me in the Twilight’, a rare double bass outing that gives the song added bounce. But the rest is pure folk-roots; from the opening raw stomp of traditional song ‘Willow Tree’ to the simple violin, marching bass drum of ‘Silence Reigns’, there's a simplicity yet deep soulfulness to the music, aided throughout by the tastefully elegant tones of the Wildwood Trio.

The bluesy ‘Anna Lee’, a traditional song by Laurelyn Dossett, and a cautionary tale of sorts, is just some scrawling violin and voices, while the violin plucked strings is the only sound to accompany the harmonious voices of ‘Whenever I'm Home’. And the traditional song ‘Stranger’ features just repetitive rhythmic violin lines for much of the song, with just short passages featuring simple percussion.

The title track itself is a summation of what the album is about; a celebration of singing and the joys therein, come rain or shine, and performed in the raw in a semi-gospel fashion, helped along by Lakeman's raw acoustic, and another leftfield Johns touch, a visceral, amped-up National guitar.

"I go and set my spirit free / I'll walk this life for an eternity," sings Lakeman on ‘Silence Reigns’. And, man, as long as he is armed with a guitar or a violin, I believe he will do just that.
Jeff Hemmings

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