Yes The Men Who Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing go for the years most unwieldy album title. A real mouthful to smack you in the gob with in preparation for listening to probably the best Steampunk album you will hear all year long.
From the moment SteamPunk royalty in the form of Sylvester McCoy reads the Intro to the album you know it's gonna a be a time travelling masterpiece as we step into the Tardis and find ourselves back in Victorian London where poor Queen Victoria has just buried her husband Albert and can't bear to see him go, so she goes all Necromaniac on us and is having sex with Albert's long dead corpse, only it isn't a brass band accompaniment but full on Circle Jerks style punk band with great vocals from Andy Heintz (ex -Creaming Jesus). You still with me?
Keeping up the 'difficult to say without mangling your words' theme, they then do Margate Fhtagn that has transported our tardis into the late Victorian age and a charabanc ride down to Margate over what starts out as a punked up reworking of 'Didn't we have a lovely day the day we went to Bangor'. The family are having a jolly old time down at the beach until Auntie goes into the sea and meets Cthulu at which point the band go all Slayer sludgy metal on us while Andrew O'Neil (yes the stand up comedian) does the growled vocals of Cthulu's attack. You still with me? The song then goes back and forth a couple times and we have a full 5 episode story laid out for the doctor to navigate through.
Doing It For the Whigs shows just how little has changed in our politics as another coalition goverment has all sorts of problems. This leads into the real Victorian Problems of The Peoples Common Sense Medical Advisor which will probably be the best song anyone puts out this year about wanking. Yes it's all about Victorian doctors thinking masturbation was a sign of madness, so how many times did you masturbate today?
We then get a short live drinking song Free Spirit to end side one and pour ourselves a libation whilst my good man cranks up the radiogramme in time for side 2 opened by the lead single Brunel. It's a great song about Isambard kingdom Brunel's achievements, a man we are still grateful to as many of his bridges and tunnels are still in use. One even proved impossible to demolish so had a new bridge built on top of it instead. It's Outside Paddington Station, incidentally.
|
The Great Stink is probably my favourite song on the album and how often can you say a song about building sewers in London is the best song on an album? Not often, but Joseph Bazalgette needs loads of credit for what he gave to this city and this song is a brilliant tribute to the man and all the lives his work saved from disease and stink.
Tesla Coil brilliantly melds Tesla's coil and contraception together and gives a good slap in the face to anyone stupid enough to be anti contraception while the band rampage through the different eras and nail another great tune.
Mutiny Of the Common Soldiery is as good an anti war song as you'll hear anywhere as it tells the story of how the footsoldiers have more in common with the other foot soldiers they are killing than the officers and politicians ordering them to go off killing and conquering to help the Empire. Lord help us all - still.
The album closes with a salutory tale of Poor Georgie who gets himself stuffed, well he won't misbehave himself again now will he!!
This is a great fun album of very clever tunes that should get them playing at some good festivals and gigs. I'd be surprised to hear a better Steampunk album this year!
TMTWNBBFN Facebook page
|
