HAIRY PHLEGMBALL - THE SOUND OF MUCUS II
MVD Audio

Comedy punk isn’t to all tastes, but if you enjoy short, sharp and catchy tunes with humorous lyrics, you’ll probably find enough in Hairy Phlegmball’s second album to keep you amused.

With a mix of surf guitar and psychobilly beats, topped with suitably gruff vocals, the band are probably not going to win any awards for originality, but the retro vibe is not disagreeable. Tracks like Cheap Beer and Tidy Bowl Man wander dangerously close to the B52’s at times, but on the whole, this is a fairly inoffensive, if unmemorable selection of sharp, short (the shortest is the 15 second Sound of Silence – though this probably doesn’t count, as it is indeed just silence) ditties. Subjects under discussion include Three Stooges member Larry Fine, taking a piss (there’s plenty of toilet humour here), eating roadkill, and the fact that you Can’t Rhyme Nuthin’ with Orange. If you’re looking for sophisticated humour, you’ll be sorely disappointed (though the band name alone should’ve been a warning to you.

The best tunes on offer here are Rugrat and album opener Designated Driver; the rest are decent enough in small doses – but listening to the album from start to finish does start to feel like a bit of a chore after a while. By the time the album wound up with a drunken cover of the Ultraman theme song, I’d heard enough. But listened one or two at a time, these are not awful. If you hate novelty punk, Hairy Phlegmball are hardly going to change your mind. But if you enjoy a mix of dumb lyrics and bouncy tunes, you might find them amusing.

DAVID FLINT

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