Half Man Half Biscuit - Trouble Over Bridgwater

  by Maarten Schiethart

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

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Review

Each of the members of Half Man Half Biscuit's approach to recording is experimental. Rudimentary songs which, however, do not sound garagey end up as small punk ballad masterpieces on 'Trouble over Bridgwater'. On everyday rock instruments Half Man Half Biscuit's performances are pretty exceptional, and in a sense they are like a kind of a sarcastic top 40 cover band. Clever tossers with a great talent for impersonating pop characters would, however, probably be too negative a description of the inimitable Half Man Half Biscuit Sound Of Music. Lead singer Nigel Crossley is one of the greatest lyricists of today but calling his method of proclaiming stories rap would drive Eminem fans up the curtains. There is no way of labelling this as spoken word either though. "Trouble Over Bridgwater" has true melodies, and also catchy choruses. There's summer fun slagging of traffic jams on 'Bottle Neck at Capel Curig' and rightly hearted cynicism about 24/7 shops in '24 Hour Garage'. The tunes in the meantime are excellent. Have Half Man Half Biscuit got news for you? Very much so ! Each cloud has a silver lining on "Trouble Over Bridgwater".

Track Listing:-

1 Irk The Purists
2 Ufington Wassail
3 Third Track Main Camera Four Minutes
4 Nove On The Sly
5 Ballad Of Climie Fisher
6 Gubba Look A Likes
7 Mathematically Safe
8 With Goth On Our Side
9 Used To Be In Evil Gazebo
10 Slight Reprise
11 It's Clinched To Be Cynical
12 At Christmas
13 Visitor For Mr Edmonds
14 Bottleneck At Curing
15 Emerging From Gorse
16 Look Dad No Tunes
17 Twenty Four Hour Garage People

Band Links:-

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Half-Ma

Label Links:-

http://www.probeplus-store.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/Probe-Plus-Re
http://www.probe-plus.co.uk/