Recommended Album:

Our Rating:

Seth Lakeman’s new album is a surprisingly rich blend of bluegrass and Irish folk. Some excellent string arrangements offer occasions of genuine depth and atmosphere. The recession-busting opening title track offers up the rousing chorus “Hold your hands up to the sky and stand together to survive”. Add to this a winding, high energy violin, and it might make you want to riverdance on a banker’s face. ‘The Watchman’ follows, which is more of a stripped-back ramshackle ballad. ‘Tiny World’ is a jolly little ‘chase a piglet round the garden’ kind of  number, which sees Lakeman  heading along traditional folk ditty lines, with a Levellers / Pogues feel. ‘The Preacher’s Ghost’ adds a rolling, foggy drama to the otherwise rather surface tone throughout much of ‘Hearts & Minds’. Despite the over-reliance on the sort of pseudo-spiritual lyrics that seem to go down so well in coffee shops on both sides of the Atlantic, the fact it all sounds suspiciously like the Bon Jovi soundtrack to Young Guns II, and tight black T-shirts aside, there are some commendable high points here.

A rudimentary knowledge of world history supplemented by five minutes trawling the internets has left me with the conviction that there are two distinct sorts of anarchist. There’s the Kick-Ass, whose average morning consists of assassinating a reactionary archbishop whilst simultaneously flipping Franco the bird and getting oral from some 1930s scene chick. And then there’s type two, the Total Pussy, who believes that nose piercings are pretty edgy and that finding a cure for cancer is so totally not worth it if some fluffy-wuffy bunnies have to get hurt in the process. I’m hoping that hardcore fans of anarco-folk-punk-hyphen-genre-enthusiasts The Levellers belong to the latter variety, because I have a shameful confession to make – since the band’s formation way back in the Pre-Cambrian Era, this reviewer has resolutely failed to give a toss about them. As such, last year’s über gig at the Albert Hall to celebrate their 20^th anniversary rather passed me by, which is a pity if the resulting live CD album is anything to go by.

While you’re not getting the entire concert – the recording equipment crashed and burned during the show, apparently – the ten tracks on offer provide a decent mix of old and new, with tunes taken from ‘A Weapon Called The Word’, ‘Levellers’, ‘Zeitgeist’, ‘Mouth To Mouth’ and latest album ‘Letters From The Underground’. It’s good to discover that, to my non-Levellers attuned ear at least, the newer stuff stands up well alongside ye olde hits – honours for standout track are split between 1993’s melancholy ‘Julie’ and 2008 single ‘Before The End’.

Other high points include harmonica-heavy agitpop ‘Together All The Way’, rumbustious crowd-pleaser ‘Men-An-Tol’ and the anthemic ‘Chemically Free’. Sadly, ‘Live At The Royal Albert Hall’ does commit one major war crime in the shape of the retardedly awful ‘This Garden’. It speaks to the high quality of dope available in 1993 that there were enough epically stoned people in the country to push this unholy melange of didgeridoo drone and half-arsed rap to the dizzying heights of #12 in the UK Singles Chart. Cower in shamefaced self-loathing, early ’90s Britain.

Assuming, however, that you bury track nine at the crossroads with a stake through its heart, I’ve got to say that this is a pretty decent live album; the band are on good form, there’s an interesting range of songs and the sound quality is top notch. It may not win any new converts, but ‘Live At The Royal Albert Hall’ is well worth popping into the low-fat, biodegradable, fair trade Christmas stocking of your favourite Levellers’ fan.