"If you just listen to the Word Of Mouth CD in isolation you'll think "there goes dear old Seth...usual stuff...some nice songs...great fiddle...lots of jiggery, toe-tapping rhythms...just wish he'd calm down a bit and not always sound like the hounds of hell are on his tail...still a bit one-dimensional..." But ... Lakeman is a much better songwriter than you might imagine from all that breathless frothy stuff demanded of him in his "pop star" years when the form and persona obliterated some outstanding material. For example the infamous White Hare which, if stripped of all those relentlessly high-energy Seth-isms, would stand up and be counted as an unaccompanied song. There's another one here in the shape of his emotional ballad Portrait Of My Wife, accompanied by lamenting fiddle".
