Customer Reviews

The punch bowl is a strong brew ! - By: Arthur Dooley, 16 Jun 2008
Having come to the brilliant Seth Lakeman through his Mercury nominated 'Kitty Jay' & the follow up 'Freedom Fields' & having seen an electrifying live performance at Liverpool's Academy. I had procrastinated about getting Seth's first album which appears to have been lost from critical evaluation on the Amazon pages. I presumed that perhaps a younger Seth had been a 'fingerin yer ear' Martin Carthy traditionalist & The Punch Bowl was full of earnest but dull renditions of sea shanties & songs about maiden's losing their....thingymagig.
In truth, The Punch Bowl is a pure Seth Lakeman album full of catchy riffs,wailing fiddles & those emotive vocals. With Cara Dillon providing sweet backing vocals & the rest of the Lakeman clan rustling up the instrumental backing,the album chunkers along apace & all too quickly...in a mere 28 minutes...ends.
Pity Seth couldn't have filled it out for another 10 or 15 minutes & it could have been a belter. Whatever...it's still a fine short piece of work from one of our finest Nu-Folk performer/composers.