Judge this album on its lyrical content rather than its sound, because as a collection of acoustic folk tunes Betrayed By Folk is never going to trouble the charts.

With song titles such as Why I Am A Terrorist, Saint Bob and Ballad Of The New Orleans Flood, Dale's topical credentials are obvious. The problem lies in the fact that he's not saying anything new.

All the messages he's clumsily trying to articulate such as Bush's incompetence, the fact that Geldof is a bit pally with Blair and that Hurricane Katrina was dealt with badly are all too familiar, so do we need some sea shanties to ram home the arguments?

Dale's tendency to shoe-horn too many syllables into a line makes the whole thing sound like an over-enthusiastic, sandal-wearing music teacher who's taken over assembly.

Or, as Ricky Gervais so excellently put it in his Politics stand-up show, "We're changing the world and we're doing it in C!"

Released February 27, 2006.

Andrew Blackshire