Voyage to the Bottom of the Road by Half Man Half Biscuit

Voyage to the Bottom of the Road, the sixth album from Birkenhead's Half Man Half Biscuit, turned up on Probe Plus in July 1997 with Nigel Blackwell still lobbing sardonic, surreal grenades at British pop culture and sending up whatever genre wandered into range. Blackwell (vocals, guitar) and bassist Neil Crossley had fresh company, too: guitarist Ken Hancock and drummer Carl Henry, both new arrivals.

Nobody could agree whether this was the Biscuits' finest hour or their dimmest. AllMusic later heard a canny mid-career reinvention and compared it to the Mekons swerving into country; Select reckoned it made Beck sound like Michael Bolton; and the NME wrote the whole thing off as clumsy post-punk from middle-aged men stuck in dull day jobs. Either way, "Paintball's Coming Home" has one of the best jokes in its title alone.

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