Album Review: Half Man Half Biscuit - "The Voltarol Years"

 

Maybe the ultimate cult band, it's somewhat reassuring to know that fifteen albums into their career, Wirral indie veterans Half Man Half Biscuit remain their usual scathingly sarcastic selves. With song titles like Tess Of The Dormobiles, Persian Rug Sale At The URC and Token Covid Song, it really couldn't be anyone other than HMHB really.

If there's an overriding theme on The Voltarol Years then, as the album title suggests, it's the onset of middle age and the depressing realisation that death is creeping up on you. The fact that it starts with I'm Getting Buried In The Morning, an ode to a murderer being sent to the electric chair, is telling and the likes of Big Man Up Front, dealing with a hit and run accident, the self-explanatory Beneath This Broken Headstone and the reflective closer Oblong Of Dreams which seems to be talking about a dying man's last moments.

Yet there's still plenty of room for Half Man Half Biscuit's trademark scabrous humour in here - In A Suffolk Ditch is an ode to leaving the bodies of Kelvin McKenzie and Nicholas Witchell in sacks in the aforementioned location while Midnight Mass Murder is an ode to lower league football akin to the classic Friday Night And The Gates Are Low.

With Mark E Smith sadly now no longer with us, it's good to see the north west's other infamous group of veteran indie curmudgeons still going strong and The Voltarol Years is proof that despite the fixation on more morbid topics, they've still got plenty of life left in them. A good album for both long time fans and those who are just getting started on their voyage of discovery of this rather awesome and unique band.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑 (8/10)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Garbage Days Revisited #67: Jason & The Scorchers - "Still Standing" (1986)

Image
  "And though you are so far away, ten thousand miles of sorrow/This prison cannot, will not kill our blessed free tomorrow"  - Jason & The Scorchers  - Good Things Come To Those Who Wait Like a lot of Britrockers my age, it's probably Ginger Wildheart 's fault that I became a Jason & The Scorchers fan. They're a band who the G-man has never made any secret of his admiration for and the Wildhearts even covered the Scorchers classic White Lies  as a B-side to Anthem  many years ago. Most people who've heard them will happily tell you that the group's 1983 EP Fervor  and their 1985 debut full length*  Lost & Found  are classics of the cowpunk genre, the perfect missing link between Johnny Cash and the Ramones and you can add me to that list as well. The follow-up, 1986's Still Standing though? Now that one seems to be a bit more divisive. And that's why it's the one we're covering here on Garbage Days Revisited... (* - well, sort
Read more

Album Review: Steve Vincent - "Recovered From My Past"

Image
  Best known as the frontman of Brit sleaze perennials Paradise Alley, this is the first solo album from Steve Vincent. I have to be honest, Steve's day job band are one of those who I've heard of but don't recall hearing anything by but the general signs here appeared to be promising with a guest list including the Wildhearts' Danny McCormack, ex-Dolls and current Mike Monroe guitarist Steve Conte and McCormack's old Main Grains bandmate (along with several others) Ben Marsden. The first thing to be aware of here though is that if you're expecting a Soho sleaze by numbers affair then you might just be in for a bit of a surprise. If anything, Recovered From My Past  sails closer to the shores of power pop or the vintage strain of '80s Brit-glam (the Babysitters, Soho Roses, Torme, Marionette etc) with a healthy dash of early Hanoi Rocks in there as well. Certainly the harmonica honking likes of Yesterday's Man , Last Train To Babylon  and Can't Bring
Read more

Album Review: The Wannabes - "Monster Beach"

Image
The Wannabes are the musical brainchild of Nottingham resident Wayne Zenith and from looking at the guy's  Bandcamp page , I think it's fair to say he's a somewhat prolific feller with over 50 releases under various incarnations on there. Musically, as the title and artwork probably suggest, it's pretty straightforward Ramones style three-chord headbanger territory (including a competent cover of Rockaway Beach ) with a touch of the Cramps' gleefully sicko gorehound tendencies as songs with titles such as I Was There At The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Stuff Cindy In The Incinerator  suggest. There's a few little tricks in there to ensure this doesn't fall into one trick pony territory though with the keyboards over the top actually adding a bit of a '60s Nuggets  style feel to some of the songs especially opener Somehow  which even has an extended piano-led break in the middle - brave move but it works. The more moody mid-paced Drag You Down  (whic
Read more