An irrepressible determine round Liverpool for many years, Geoff Davies’ dying in September 2023 left a big void. Within the early ’70s, Davies had co-founded Probe Information – catalyst for town’s punk scene, the place the likes of Pete Burns, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie labored behind the counter – earlier than beginning up his personal Probe Plus label in 1981. He signed quite a few native bands, none extra impactful than Half Man Half Biscuit.
The shock indie success of 1985’s Again In The DHSS (finances £40; gross sales 50,000) opened the door to a profession HMHB by no means anticipated, largely attributable to Davies’ tenacity in spreading the phrase. So it’s totally apposite, 30 years on and one other 15 albums later, that All Asimov And No Contemporary Air is devoted to his reminiscence.
It could probably make Davies chuckle, rammed as it’s with the sort of poetic ingenuity, absurd fiction and savage wit that makes chief Nigel Blackwell such a singular satirist. Blackwell’s MO has basically remained unchanged. Per being a gatekeeper of cultural sanity and style – calling out pomposity, pretension, lack of manners and rampant mediocrity wherever he sees match – there’s one thing warmly reassuring a couple of HMHB track. And whereas there’s heaps of humour, there’s additionally a profound love of language, syntax and metrical mischief.
After all, none of this could fly with out killer tunes. Singer-guitarist Blackwell and bassist Neil Crossley have been collectively from the off, offering HMHB with a lot of its melody and post-punk vigour, with drummer Carl Henry in situ because the mid-’90s. These three make up the majority of All Asimov…, which readily switches gear between clamorous folks, stroppy alt.pop anthems and, in additional measured moments, a sort of gleefully seditious balladry. Vitality ranges dip to swimsuit: the reflective “The Bliss Of The Hereafter” looks like a confession, with Blackwell singing of darkish days and a waning artistic urge for food, underpinned by the notion (as a eager bike owner) of surreptitiously pedalling out of sight. However then the entire temper is out of the blue lifted by the traces: “Attempting to get a trestle desk/Again off Beth Tweddle/Such a ache within the arse.”
British gymnasts however, different references embrace Edgar Allan Poe, George Mallory and a sure ITV’s This Morning presenter, who’s unceremoniously distributed with within the opening bars of “Attainable Aspect Results”: “Each time I hear a information report of an avalanche involving British skiers/I pay attention in with curiosity within the hope that I’d catch the identify Ben Shephard.”
“Attainable Aspect Results” would possibly seem like all jocular bile and surreal digression – involving an acid-imbibed go to to Legoland and a proposal to exchange a lacking tile on Alan Sugar’s roof – but it surely’s a spidery break-up ballad with desperation at its root. It finds a companion (in track, that’s) in “Don’t Get Me Improper Yvonne”, whose upbeat manner masks an unsettling story of stalker-ish obsession. “Goodbye Sam, Whats up Samaritans” is equally subversive, managing to offset Blackwell’s knack for frolicsome rhyme – “I noticed Badly Drawn Boy in a badly parked automotive/With a badly grazed elbow” – with creeping despair. As with a lot of his songwriting, there’s depth, nuance and a sheltered humanity at work right here.
Additional proof that All Asimov… isn’t simply taking part in for laughs arrives with “Birmos In The Cowshed”. Set to a intentionally nostalgic Pistols groove, it’s narrated by a pensioner with a tenuous grasp of the current who takes solace from vivid recollections of his youthful days, hanging out with mates on the soccer, silk scarves on the wrist. ‘Birmos’, by the way, refers to Birmingham baggage, the high-waisted trouser popularised within the ’70s.
Elsewhere although, there’s untrammelled mirth. “File Retailer Day” takes a swipe on the business’s flag day: “Extortion on a levеl you may hardly conceive/Tarted up in a fibreglass sleeve”. “No-One Likes A Polymath” finds Isaac Asimov nurturing a prize allotment someplace within the North Downs, his unbearable smugness (“Heated gilet and the assertion scarf”) necessitating a go to from a vengeful mob. And precisely what sparked “McCalliog And His Hens” – a couple of poultryman and his telepathic leghorns who crack instances for the Devon CID – is anyone’s guess.
However nothing fairly prepares you for doom-folk saga “Falmouth Electrics”. Its newly redundant chronicler buys a ventriloquist dummy, provides ear-piercings and eyeliner, then notices its resemblance to Pete Murphy. Parading down Falmouth excessive road in direction of HMV, and unable to pronounce the letter ‘B’, the doll invents its catchphrase: “Have you ever received any Gauhaus?” Evidently, issues don’t end up nicely. It’s good. If this file doesn’t transfer you on any degree, you actually do have a wood coronary heart.