The latest edition of the Getting into series looks at Half Man Half Biscuit’s 7th album, 1998’s Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral.
I intended to be finished with this series by now, but I’m just returning to it after 5 months off. I had to take a break because I was bored; bored of making the same criticisms, bored of giving the same praise, bored of HMHB. And I think that’s a fair reflection of HMHB in 1998; they’d become boring by virtue of doing too much of the same thing; regardless of how well they might do that thing.
It’s frustrating because with 1991’s McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt and 1993’s This Leaden Pall there were hints of a different HMHB emerging; a little more musically expansive, maybe even a little more serious. They never fully committed to those directions on those albums, but it feels like they then actively retreated from them in the succeeding years. The mid to late 90’s sees them in a creative rut. Albeit HMHB’s creative rut is still more interesting than many bands’ creative peak.
At their best, HMHB operate in a world of surrealistic mundanity. Nigel Blackwell writes about things that people don’t really write about in pop songs, full of bizarre and obscure references but with a sneaky sense of something deeper lurking underneath. Plus, they’ve got catchy tunes, which helps.
At their worst, they almost become a parody of themselves; as if writing about things that people don’t really write about becomes the whole point. Any sense of something more becomes buried under a slew of impenetrable references. Oh, and the tunes aren’t that catchy, which makes it difficult to justify putting in the time trying to make sense of it. These opposing sides of HMHB are both on display with this album.
The highlight here is Soft Verges, a slice of spoken-word storytelling playing out over a daunting slow-burner suited to a murder ballad, contrasted with a mundane sketch about avoiding small talk. Only for tragedy to later be revealed behind the mundanity. It’s classic HMHB; subverting expectations with their own twist on musical convention, only to quickly subvert expectations once more by delivering a plot twist. Humour and humanity being intrinsically linked.
Elsewhere, there’s easily digestible indie-pop in Four Skinny Indie Kids and Ready Steady Goa; the kind of tunes that makes you imagine they could quite easily have been a reasonably successful radio-friendly band if they stuck some clichéd lyrics over the top. There’s increasing country influences seeping in, most notably with the slide guitar-assisted Moody Chops, which offers a skewed look at the consequences of success; you can’t be a sad-sack songwriter when you’re doing jams with Jools Holland. And some typical HMHB ludicrousness that you can’t help but enjoy, where else do you get a chorus of “It’s all my arse”.
The album title is symbolic of the bad here. A vaguely amusing Beatles reference that seems to offer no substance beyond the novelty of the pun itself, as they slip into forced quirkiness. The low point is A Country Practice; a six-minute slog of indecipherable references and it even has yodelling at the end. It’s the first point during this series that I’ve thought the songwriting was actively bad.
And there’s moments where they’re too niche for their own good. Secret Gig mocks the self-importance and absurdity behind the idea of seeing a band being shrouded in such mystery. Disdain for the music scenes around them is a favourite topic for HMHB, but they’ve got so many gripes at this point that their complaints are more annoying than what they’re complaining about and it’s so inconsequential that I just couldn’t give a fuck. Also, it’s not funny.
I’ve still got more than half of their discography which could disprove this, but I worry that HMHB’s creative ambitions peaked with This Leaden Pall. A stab at something greater, before settling into the comfort of what’s expected. For a band that’s so good at subverting expectations, they’ve become a bit too predictable
Rating:
The next edition will be 8th album – Trouble over Bridgwater.
You can catch up on previous editions here.
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