Ballads of the broken few

"Liberated from all that "poster boy of folk" nonsense, Seth spreads his wings. He still overdoes some of the quivering vibrato vocals that characterised his more frenetic thrashes of old, but this is a much calmer and studied affair in which raging seas, heroes, whether rampaging or tragic, are largely - though not entirely - jettisoned. It is less fiddle-driven than we have come to expect; at least that stomping fiddle that characterised his pop star years. At times he adopts almost classical techniques while his ghostly electric guitar is a fascinating feature of the title track ... Presumably much of the credit for the surprising variety of shades and styles here (...) goes to the influence of producer Ethan Johns ... Maybe another factor in the shift of direction is his re-acquaintance with traditional song gleaned from his involvement with The Full English show ... All of which contributes to a friendly, accessible album of welcome surprises".