An irrepressible figure around Liverpool for decades, Geoff Davies’ death in September 2023 left a significant void. In the early ’70s, Davies had co-founded Probe Records – catalyst for the city’s punk scene, where the likes of Pete Burns, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie worked behind the counter – before starting up his own Probe Plus label in 1981. He signed numerous local bands, none more impactful than Half Man Half Biscuit.
An irrepressible figure around Liverpool for decades, Geoff Davies’ death in September 2023 left a significant void. In the early ’70s, Davies had co-founded Probe Records – catalyst for the city’s punk scene, where the likes of Pete Burns, Julian Cope and Pete Wylie worked behind the counter – before starting up his own Probe Plus label in 1981. He signed numerous local bands, none more impactful than Half Man Half Biscuit.
The surprise indie success of 1985’s Back In The DHSS (budget £40; sales 50,000) opened the door to a career HMHB never expected, largely due to Davies’ tenacity in spreading the word. So it’s entirely apposite, 30 years on and another 15 albums later, that All Asimov And No Fresh Air is dedicated to his memory.
It would doubtless make Davies chuckle, rammed as it is with the kind of poetic ingenuity, absurd fiction and savage wit that makes leader Nigel Blackwell such a unique satirist. Blackwell’s MO has essentially remained unchanged. Consistent with being a gatekeeper of cultural sanity and taste – calling out pomposity, pretension, lack of manners and rampant mediocrity wherever he sees fit – there’s something warmly reassuring about a HMHB song. And while there’s heaps of humour, there’s also a profound love of language, syntax and metrical mischief.
Of course, none of this would fly without killer tunes. Singer-guitarist Blackwell and bassist Neil Crossley have been together from the off, providing HMHB with much of its melody and post-punk vigour, with drummer Carl Henry in situ since the mid-’90s. These three make up the bulk of All Asimov…, which readily switches gear between clamorous folk, stroppy alt.pop anthems and, in more measured moments, a kind of gleefully seditious balladry. Energy levels dip to suit: the reflective “The Bliss Of The Hereafter” feels like a confession, with Blackwell singing of dark days and a waning creative appetite, underpinned by the notion (as a keen cyclist) of surreptitiously pedalling out of sight. But then the whole mood is suddenly lifted by the lines: “Trying to get a trestle table/Back off Beth Tweddle/Such a pain in the arse.”
British gymnasts notwithstanding, other references include Edgar Allan Poe, George Mallory and a certain ITV’s This Morning presenter, who’s unceremoniously dispensed with in the opening bars of “Possible Side Effects”: “Whenever I hear a news report of an avalanche involving British skiers/I listen in with interest in the hope that I might catch the name Ben Shephard.”
“Possible Side Effects” might appear to be all jocular bile and surreal digression – involving an acid-imbibed visit to Legoland and an offer to replace a missing tile on Alan Sugar’s roof – but it’s a spidery break-up ballad with desperation at its root. It finds a companion (in song, that is) in “Don’t Get Me Wrong Yvonne”, whose upbeat demeanour masks an unsettling tale of stalker-ish obsession. “Goodbye Sam, Hello Samaritans” is similarly subversive, managing to offset Blackwell’s knack for playful rhyme – “I saw Badly Drawn Boy in a badly parked car/With a badly grazed elbow” – with creeping despair. As with much of his songwriting, there’s depth, nuance and a sheltered humanity at work here.
Further proof that All Asimov… isn’t just playing for laughs arrives with “Birmos In The Cowshed”. Set to a deliberately nostalgic Pistols groove, it’s narrated by a pensioner with a tenuous grasp of the present who takes solace from vivid recollections of his younger days, hanging out with mates at the football, silk scarves on the wrist. ‘Birmos’, incidentally, refers to Birmingham bags, the high-waisted trouser popularised in the ’70s.
Elsewhere though, there’s untrammelled mirth. “Record Store Day” takes a swipe at the industry’s flag day: “Extortion on a levеl you can hardly conceive/Tarted up in a fibreglass sleeve”. “No-One Likes A Polymath” finds Isaac Asimov nurturing a prize allotment somewhere in the North Downs, his insufferable smugness (“Heated gilet and the statement scarf”) necessitating a visit from a vengeful mob. And exactly what sparked “McCalliog And His Hens” – about a poultryman and his telepathic leghorns who crack cases for the Devon CID – is anybody’s guess.
But nothing quite prepares you for doom-folk saga “Falmouth Electrics”. Its newly redundant chronicler buys a ventriloquist dummy, adds ear-piercings and eyeliner, then notices its resemblance to Pete Murphy. Parading down Falmouth high street towards HMV, and unable to pronounce the letter ‘B’, the doll invents its catchphrase: “Have you got any Gauhaus?” Needless to say, things don’t turn out well. It’s brilliant. If this record doesn’t move you on any level, you really do have a wooden heart.
