Inadequate Record Reviews #3: CSI Ambleside – Half Man Half Biscuit

Not as good as the last album, “Achtung Bono”, and some way off their masterpiece, “Cammell Laird Social Club”. Musically and lyrically it’s a little repetitive (this is even commented on within the track “Lord Hereford’s Knob”), but it is more HMHB and therefore is still a thing to be embraced. And it’s not like there isn’t moments of brilliance. Closing track “National Shite Day” is the album’s high point, a piece of dour miserable wit that goes beyond the usual Larry David-like irritation by minutiae that is part of HMHB’s stock in trade. Not that there isn’t plenty of that here too, see this album’s “Bad Losers On Yahoo Chess”, “Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show” and perhaps the ultimate condensing of HMHB’s themes, the Hokey-Cokey borrowing, “Petty Sessions”: