“It’s as bleak as the boondock where stern-faced Neubaten rehearse”.

Derided by the clueless as late 80s indie comedy punk, HMHB have valiantly ploughed their own furrow of true English folk music… I simply defy anyone living in this tragically chav-infested nation to listen to this album and not be delighted from start to finish.

The titles say it all:

“Joy Division Oven Gloves”
“Shit Arm, Bad Tattoo” (hello The Libertines’ 2nd album)
“CORGI Registered Friends”
“For What Is Chatteris?”
“Asparagus Next Left”
“We Built This Village On A Trad. Arr. Tune”

Pick of the bunch, though, has to be the monumentally cheerful “Depressed Beyond Tablets”, which not only supplies the opening line of this tirade, but also such gems as…

“I am shrouded by inexorable darkness and I’ll tell you this for nowt — La Belle Epoque sang “Black Is Black”. Yeah, but I sing “Black Is Black Is Black is Blacker…”

“Your optimism strikes me like junk mail addressed to the dead”

“Hey Blakey, does your bus go by the dark satanic mills?
“If I was in CSNY, I’d be Stephen Stills”

Oh yes… nearly forgot… “Surging From Convalescence” features this gem…

“Is your child hyperactive, or is he perhaps a twat?”

Genius. Vote Nigel Blackwell for Poet Laureate.