Gritty folk singer-songwriter and virtuoso fiddler Seth Lakeman could not have dug deeper into his roots for his 6th album, "Tales from the Barrel House." In his boldest musical statement yet, Seth, has not only written the songs, but played everything, produced and mixed the album.

His bow-shredding violin riffs are there, together with his driving tenor guitar rhythms. But it's the primitive new sounds he's conjured up that give this album it's atmospheric vibe - loads of what Seth calls "dirty viola," banjo, bouzouki, a booming bass heartbeat from an old Salvation Army drum he rescued from a junkshop, and a jangling array of percussion made up from bits of old iron or discarded tools found down the mine and around the Morwellham workshops.

This album is like the granite bedrock of Seth's West Country stamping ground - solid, hard and uncompromising.