Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road

so it's good to report that voyage to the bottom of the road (1997) is a great return to form, starting from a shropshire lad's grinding guitar and almost inexplicable chant of "boom boom boom, let me hear you say hosepipe ban". more and more of the songs are based around the music biz, frequently written from the point of view of a struggling indie band. shropshire lad starts with a hilarious tale of a bogus festival, bad review ("not that i'm concerned / your paper's full of crap / i only read the gig guide anyway") is pretty much self-explanatory, while the cheerfully bitchy eno collaboration shows that hmhb have no plans to expand their proudly limited sonic pallette at any point in the future.