Track Listing

1. Shropshire Lad
2. Bad Review
3. Eno Collaboration
4. Dead Men Don't Need Season Tickets
5. Deep House Victims Minibus Appeal
6. CAMRA Man
7. PRS Yearbook (Quick The Drawbridge)
8. Tonight Matthew I'm Going To Be With Jesus
9. Song Of Encouragement For The Orme Ascent
10. Monmore Hares Running
11. Itma
12. He Who Would Valium Take
13. See That My Bike's Kept Clean
14. Paintball Coming Home

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61123 in Music
• Released on: 1997-07-21
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

Probably the best Half Man Half Biscuit album in the world..
I first encountered HMHB in the mid 80's - I remember an interview with them in Melody Maker (or NME, I forget which) when 'Back in the DHSS' had just been released (yep, I am THAT old), and laughing a lot. What more can anyone ask? The only thing I bought after that was the Trumpton Riots single, and then, I'm ashamed to say, I left them behind... not really sure why... maybe it's because they split up?

Over the past few weeks I've rediscovered them, and I can honestly say that they have 'made' the last few weeks for me. I've managed to acquire 4 of their CD's in fairly quick succession - DHSS, Godcore, Wirral and this one (and I'm on the look out for the others). I haven't laughed so much in a long time, and find that all the albums have a certain 'charm' about them in that typically English Ray Davies/Paul Weller style - poking fun at the out and out drabness of modern life and picking out people that we all know and despise. But obviously with the emphasis mostly on humour. What non-Brits make of this stuff I have no idea...

But this is the album I find myself returning to time and time again. There are so many great songs, so many fantastically catchy hooks that once the songs are in your brain, you just can't get rid of them - not that you'd want too.

Favourite songs: 'Bad Review' ("Not that I'm concerned (course you're not), You're paper's full of crap (course it is), I only read the gig guide anyway") is inspired. I don't know what happened to them in the past 5 or 6 years, but musically they've improved beyond all recognition... Jesus, they might even be described as 'musical'!!!

"Paintball's Coming Home" with its rant against pretension is just wonderful ("they know where things are at B&Q") and you'll find yourself singing this while you're getting dressed in the morning... "Eno Collaboration" has a fantastic hook and, well, anything that takes the piss out of former glam rockers and U2 is fine by me...

The lengths people will go to to get their hands on a season ticket, the w*nk*rs who campaign for real ale, stars in their eyes and every other topic on this album makes it definitely a 5 star job. All I ask is that you give us more stuff more regularly Nigel.

Always the same but different
This is possibly their best album,and it's certainly one of their funniest-no mean feat.
The actual music is not always that great but this band has always been mainly about the lyrics and they don't let you down here.Despite this it's a record that i keep coming back to,and i still chuckle even after so many plays.
Arguably Britains finest satirists but they deserve to be a lot bigger.

The greatest band never to nearly become successful...
...Fact: Half Man Half Biscuit are a bit like Marmite. You either love them or you hate them. And like Marmite, many people decide that they hate HMHB without actually bothering to try a taste.
But those people won't be reading this review, so that doesn't matter. What you want to know is, is this album any good?

Oh, it's good all right. Speaking personally, I'd have to disagree with the folks who call it their best album. For me that will always be 'Back Again in the DHSS'. But 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Road' is a real contender, and definitely lives up there with HMHB's better works.
You know the formula by now. Amiable rock with a punk-ish kind of influence, waxing lyrical on life's little absurdities (He Who Would Valium Take, CAMRA Man, ITMA), telling stories so achingly mundane you can't help but feel a part of them (Dead Men Don't Need Season Tickets, Deep House Victims Minibus Appeal), and poking fun at the little things which annoy the hell out of us all (Paintball's Coming Home). It doesn't sound like it should work. But it does!

It's also worth remembering that underneath the silliness is a very capable bunch of musicians, with a nicely distinctive approach to songwriting. This album is a particularly good showcase of HMHB's latent musical talent.

So, Voyage to the Bottom of the Road, then: One for the fans? Definitely. One for everybody else? Well, I'd say so. It's certainly one of their more accessible albums and doesn't take a lot of listening to before you start to get into it. I wouldn't say it's their best, but as a starting point for the curious, you could do much, much worse.