Burlesque includes 13 songs and tunes inspired by a dazzling array of material - from the Napoleonic Wars "Rigs Of The Time", the American minstrel movement "Jordan", sea-shanties from Brazil "Across The Line", and the spirit of the East Anglian step-dance tradition "Sloe Gin". The band have long since transcended the idea of simply being a folk band with some brass players, and have honed their own unique style which sets them apart. Despite being deeply rooted in the English folk dance tradition, they also merge a joyous, uplifting cacophony of sound with a slightly sinister, distorted collision of music hall, Lotte Lenya, Robert Wyatt and pure theatre.

"Having taken the festival scene by the scruff of its neck over the past couple of years, Bellowhead, now a modest 11 piece, at last deliver a startling debut album amid a blaze of brass, outlandish showmanship and cracking songs and tunes. They take outrageous but enthralling liberties with some of folk's hardy veterans, turning Rigs of the Time into a knockabout show tune, Flash Company into an unruly homage to Tom Waits, and Death and the Lady into a Victorian melodrama. But from the rampaging vocals of Jon Boden to Gideon Juckes' growling, slightly scary sousaphone, they sweep all before them into a heady mix of great tunes, innovative arrangements, rampant imagination and brazen front. Several leaps on the form the min-album EP Onymous, it gobbles up fresh territory without a backwards glance. Extraordinary" - Mojo 4*.