Make your mark

"Seth Lakeman has that ability to create something entirely contemporary from sounds that emerge from traditional music. The instrumentation and approach is firmly rooted in folk traditions, but the songs, themes and production resonate with modern expectations and feelings. It's an impressive mix: songs which could not have been written anytime other than now; but, at the same time, using styles entirely familiar to an audience from 1821 or 1721 ... There is something fairly bleak at the heart of 'Make Your Mark' which may centre on its origins during the pandemic. But Lakeman says he wanted to emerge "musically stronger" from the experience. This is certainly evidence of his success".

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"'Did you hear the final warning?... Did you hear the people calling?' The first lines of 'Hollow', the opening track of Make Your Mark, chime with the times as the leaders of the world (some of them) gather at COP26 in Glasgow to tease out ways to tackle the climate crisis. A sense of urgency pervades Seth Lakeman's album. These 14 new songs, written while he was locked down at home on Dartmoor by COVID-19, are expressions of deep and wide ranging inquiry and concern: for the natural world, for vulnerable people and for social progress ... Driving drums, assertive bass, searing solos, full-on vocals - Make Your Mark has all the tropes of rock music. But that's a double bass, and fiddle rather than lead guitar. And Lakeman is a storyteller".

"[Lakeman's] beloved West Country surroundings remain at the heart of the album, though the slightly fierce cover image does reflect a more measured and serious style, in which he reveals more of himself than previously, becoming a much-improved songwriter in the process".