The Tin Man. Review by Mike Davies - Fatea-records.co.uk

Apparently born on a boat while mum was gathering lobster pots, it's been six years since the Scarborough singer-songwriter's sophomore album, Diamond Land (itself, six years on from his debut), the only release in the interim being last year's The Sea & Other Things EP, featuring three live recordings, the unavailable elsewhere Price and yet another version of Frank Dalton, the track from his debut which was nominated for Fatea's track of the year in its 2012 single version.
Between albums, Webster has reined in a tendency to sometimes go overboard on soaring vocal drama (something that had me likening him to Chris De Burgh) and now delivers his ballads in a quiveringly heartfelt manner through which the passion and emotional intensity bleeds as his songs mine a running theme of life's journeys, metaphorical and actual, and their accompanying loss.
Where past references cited Damien Rice, Tom McRae, Seth Lakeman and David Gray, listening to the yearning acoustic Number 17 with its aching memories of loss the comparison that comes most to mind is the very best of Harry Chapin, albeit with an English accent. The emotion in his rasped voice is underscored by some lovely cello work from Rachel Brown, his wife, a pairing heard to resonant effect throughout, most especially on slow waltzing opener Dancers, the sort of hopeless romantic number that has grown men going weak at the knees, and the traditional tale of a sailor leaving his love behind to do his duty, the spare, melancholic British Man of War featuring harmonies by Grace Hawkins.
Balladry is Webster's default mode here, no less superbly assayed on the unspoken love regrets of Gold And Tin, Old Friends with its connection between music and memories, Goodbye's simple, heartfelt meditation on mortality with the cello poignantly ghosting the refrain from Over The Rainbow (adding to the album's assorted Wizard of Oz references) and the waltzing, anthemic piano backed Only Remember with its echoes of vintage Elton John.
He does, however, do uptempo too. Mirroring the earlier nautical narrative, the no less traditional Spanish Ladies begins with Webster a capella before sailing into a robust slow swaying shanty with Pip Joplin on violin that then segues, via a jig bridge, into a stomping version of When Johnny Comes Marching Home with its military snare, gathering to a frenetic climax before ebbing away on Brown's mournful cello notes. There's a brace of rock n rollers, album closer, Gin, which goes out in a Chuck Berry blaze, with a possible nod to Dave Edmunds, and Elvis, a cocktail of Cajun and rockabilly built on the same foundations as Kirsty MacColl's chip shop that, featuring sparking guitar licks by Lloyd Massingham, turns a musician's wry eye on playing the pub circuit with its indifferent, rude audiences. "I don't think I'll be the big ticket this year," sings Webster. Have a heart and prove him wrong.