The Beat Surrender

So Half Man Half Biscuit, the grown-up band for grown-ups who just simply refuse to grow up. Having purchased their first 2 albums, Back in the DHSS and Back Again in the DHSS – some 20 years ago – we are being reacquainted in the form of their latest offering for consideration, the cleverly titled – CSI Ambleside.

The mere mention of the sleepy Lakeland town takes me back to the time when I was first listening to HMHB – and tracks like ‘Len Ganley Stance’ and ‘Rod Hull is alive-why?’ My main personal memory of the Lakes is a freak boating accident when I came close to personal disaster. Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a Donald Campbell/World Speed record scenario, but it was still an emotional moment. There I was tootling along in a canoe, when a freak wave (yeah I know, on a lake) struck and suddenly I was underwater – my plastic craft having capsized.

As my comrades looked on from lakeside (I’m pretty sure they were watching) all they could see was my Everton sun-hat floating poignantly to the surface. Luckily, I managed to wrestle myself out of the boat and ultimately break through the surface of the water and breathe again.

My struggle back to dry land was tainted, as I knew right away there had been casualties and that I was powerless to revive them. That’s right – 20 Regal King Size, ruined – gutted.

Enough already, back to HMHB. My initial suspicion was that this album would lead me to conclude that it was really time for these lads to turn it in. Part of this was based on a performance at The Cockpit in the past few years. The gig was enjoyable but the only tracks which stood out were the old classics like ‘99% of gargoyles look like Bob Todd’ – most of the newer material passed by without leaving a lasting impression. Also a group of middle-aged balding men on stage, facing a crowd of middle-aged balding men, was a little unseemly.

Oh how wrong I was. HMHB have been described a satirical, surreal and sardonic – what they definitely do is satirise all things modern. So just a few of the subjects covered on CSI Ambleside are Facebook, Stewarding at major events, Organic food, Steroid abuse, on-line gaming, man-bags, disabled badge abuse, Primark, Retail Parks, the property market and loads, loads more.

The album kicks off with the decent ‘Evening of Swing (has been cancelled)’ and then moves up a gear with ‘Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess’. This contains the line ‘Deep Blue, in ‘97 I voted for you, for Sports Personality of the Year.’ For the uninitiated, or more likely, uninterested, Deep Blue is a chess-playing computer developed by IBM that defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.

Next up is one of the 3 stand-out tracks on the album. It’s very hard not to want to like a track called ‘Took Problem Chimp to the Ideal Home Show’ but this turns out to be a white rap, hip-hop, Beastie Boys style ditty, Laurence Llewyllyn-Bowen receives a well deserved pillorying, amongst others.

‘Ode to Joyce’ passes by smoothly, featuring the lyrics ‘Hey Joyce, you’re not as far out a Ronnie Boyce’ – presumably a nod to the oft replayed incident when West Ham’s Boyce snotted a dodgy clearance from a goal-kick straight back past the hapless Joe Corrigan from around the halfway line.

‘Blue Badge Abuser’ deals with work-shy foppishness before ‘Totnes Bickering Fair’ speaks of decree nisi, divorce and the solemn promise ‘I’m gonna feed our children non-organic food, and with the money left take ‘em to the zoo,’ pleasingly railing against the ‘right on’ types. The song ends suddenly with a chilling warning about the future environment we will inhabit ‘not long now before lollipop men are called Darren’ – quite.

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