Seth Lakeman: Tales From the Barrel House – review

Over recent albums Lakeman has stretched the crossover potential of his fiddle-based folk to snapping point, playing ever fiercer, more muscular variants of his west country tales. Unhitched from a major label, he has opted for a starker, more contemplative approach and sounds the better for it. Recorded in a disused cooperage, with opener "More Than Money" captured in a copper mine, Lakeman's tales of Devon working lives echo atmospherically, his fiddle, guitar and banjo bolstered by clanked chains and a thumped Sally Army drum. Blacksmiths and cider-makers star, but there's a versant love song, "The Sender", and an unaffected warmth to the enterprise.