Bleak House is a satirical look at the Byzantine legal system in London as it consumes the minds and talents of the greedy and nearly destroys the lives of innocents–a contemporary tale indeed. Dickens's tale takes us from the foggy dank streets of London and the maze of the Inns of Court to the peaceful countryside of England. Likewise, the characters run from murderous villains to virtuous girls, from a devoted lover to a "fallen woman," all of whom are affected by a legal suit in which there will, of course, be no winner.
Letters from the Underground was the Levellers' 13th album since they burst onto the punk-folk scene in 1990 with their debut, A Weapon Called the Word. No longer a group to rush into the studio when the bandmembers felt they had something to say, by 2008 the Levellers preferred to gig live and face their audience directly. In fact, this was their first album to chart since 2000's Hello Pig and the first on their new record label, On the Fiddle Recordings, which seemed apt – as most of the songs were dominated by the sound of Jon Sevink and his fiddle…