I have to admit that the name and style was a bit of a barrier to me.
But like so many worthwhile bands, they were worth the extra time.
Album number 16 is All Asimov and No Fresh Air, and it is the first new offering from them in three years.
Prolific and fitting in some kind of slot that is wit but not humor, I can’t help but compare them to Sparks. On paper, they should have been out of new ideas long ago but continue to delight their core audience.
All Asimov.. starts with the difficult to love “Horror Clowns are Dickheads”. While I agree with the sentiment Pennywise is no Edgar Allen Poe, and I tend to agree that people who like Horror Clowns (as well as people who say they hate clowns) are well…you know.
But things have settled to normal on the second song where our hero tells of the time he saw Badly Drawn Boy in a badly parked car with a badly grazed elbow.
While it’s not the masterpiece of the year, there is a lot to like about this album. For starters, you can be funny but if the songs aren’t fun to listen to repeatedly then what have you got? And All Asimov is strangely satisfying.
One would think the initial shock of “Falmouth Electrics” would be lost after the first listen and yet I am always compelled to hear this story of the ventriloquist’s dummy who looked “like Peter Murphy a bit” and couldn’t pronounce the letter B (“He said his name was Gary
I said: “Do you mean Barry?”
He said: “Yeah”)
It strikes me that there is a bit of a comparison to Luke Haines’s recent work. HMHB are full of wit but they still seem to put the song first.
I have glommed two things from online reviews and that I would agree strongly with both. One is the album is back loaded. The album reaches its stride with “National Album Day” and then takes off. “Going out of my Mind to get into Yours” follows as a frenetic rocker.
Also, the album isn’t an immediate classic, it’s a grower. It’s not a lot of things. It’s not their best album. It may not be the best album they are capable of making right now. It’s not like those latter-era The Fall albums that serious people will write serious words about. But at the same time, I can’t think of many albums that came out this year that I will likely enjoy more than this one. Long may the Half Man Half Biscuit banner wave.
