As Seth Lakeman's career develops - "matures" isn't the right word for a guy who started out, aged 17, playing guitar and demon fiddle for Kate Rusby - he seems to have settled on bombast as the best way to get the folk word out.
Sad to say, Hearts and Minds finds the Devonian musician stomping and yodeling his way through a collection of originals whose style and sentiment call to mind nothing so much as the Levellers, the crusty tribe that made English music festivals such a grim prospect in the mid 1990s.
The title track has strident stuff about rising up and resisting the "weight of the government's hand", while "remember[ing] there's people in constant need". Later we get sixth-form poetry about "black holes in the sky". Hints of his old flair for narrative song reappear on Preacher's Ghost, the unlikely story of a score-settling royal zombie.
Still, in former days Lakeman could make episodes from the English civil war sound as urgent as news reports; that he's reduced to this sort of chapbook schlock suggest his talent isn't getting any sharper with age. Typically, the quiet numbers cut the deepest. The countryish Stepping Over You an Anglicised Ryan Adams, circa Heartbreaker.
The Circle Grows benefits from a sparse acoustic guitar figure and jazzy double-bass reminiscent of Danny Thompson's work for John Martyn, while Lakeman's raw vocal conjures the ghost of Jeff Buckley. Even so, it's too little, too late to help his cause. Most hearts and minds will have switched off by this point.
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Bareilly Ki Barfi
Directed by: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari
Starring: Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao
Three and a half stars
MATCH INFO
Euro 2020 qualifier
Fixture: Liechtenstein v Italy, Tuesday, 10.45pm (UAE)
TV: Match is shown on BeIN Sports
GRAN%20TURISMO
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Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
Maestro
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All%20We%20Imagine%20as%20Light
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Barbie
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The%20Beekeeper
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The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Stars: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
Rating: 3.5/5
8 traditional Jamaican dishes to try at Kingston 21
- Trench Town Rock: Jamaican-style curry goat served in a pastry basket with a carrot and potato garnish
- Rock Steady Jerk Chicken: chicken marinated for 24 hours and slow-cooked on the grill
- Mento Oxtail: flavoured oxtail stewed for five hours with herbs
- Ackee and salt fish: the national dish of Jamaica makes for a hearty breakfast
- Jamaican porridge: another breakfast favourite, can be made with peanut, cornmeal, banana and plantain
- Jamaican beef patty: a pastry with ground beef filling
- Hellshire Pon di Beach: Fresh fish with pickles
- Out of Many: traditional sweet potato pudding
ARGYLLE
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Karwaan
Producer: Ronnie Screwvala
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Starring: Irrfan Khan, Dulquer Salmaan, Mithila Palkar
Rating: 4/5
Low turnout
Two months before the first round on April 10, the appetite of voters for the election is low.
Mathieu Gallard, account manager with Ipsos, which conducted the most recent poll, said current forecasts suggested only two-thirds were "very likely" to vote in the first round, compared with a 78 per cent turnout in the 2017 presidential elections.
"It depends on how interesting the campaign is on their main concerns," he told The National. "Just now, it's hard to say who, between Macron and the candidates of the right, would be most affected by a low turnout."
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
AL%20BOOM
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NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs: 2019 Mercedes-Benz C200 Coupe
Price, base: Dh201,153
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 204hp @ 5,800rpm
Torque: 300Nm @ 1,600rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 6.7L / 100km
