The Lancashire Hotpots - Nowt Like The 80s

Any long time fans of the Hotpots, Lancashire’s top comedy-folk band, will know what to expect from this, their ninth studio album in a decade, and won’t be disappointed. From a spot-on and well-observed cover parody of an early Now! compilation to songs with a great selection of influences, ‘Nowt Like The Eighties’ is another tour de farce from the comedy band though as expected it doesn’t really do anything fresh from their successful formula, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Benefitting from drip-feeding several of the tracks over the last year to get them familiar to fans, some of the album feels already recognisable through tracks like ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Lancashire’s For Me’, helping the album settle in, and if you do have chance to see the video for the latter online it will certainly get the laughs.

‘Last Can Blues’ is a fun opener but is a little like the Hotpots on autopilot, but it’s rock-and-roll vibe proves the strong production values behind the band. ‘Do The Dad Dance’ is a much better start to the album, its Black Lace style and electro-funk music style much more interesting and sounds like it could be fun live.

Continuing the electronic feel, ‘Eggs, Sausages, Chips and Beans’ offers a sound-a-like parody of ‘heads, shoulders, knees and toes’, giving it a proper Northern make-over and proves to be a pretty catchy number. 

Track four ‘Don’t Put Granny on the Internet’ is a classic, a sort of throw-back to their internet-referencing earlier material, with some great lyrics, rhymes and a bouncy rhythm. The album continues with its most absurd number, ‘6784’, a way of remembering your card PIN which is hilarious in its ridiculousness. 

‘Black Friday’, one of the previously previewed tracks, is a fun number about the day of crazy shopping, once more showcasing the great balance between musical production and observational lyrics.  ‘My Pianist’ follows ‘Has Anyone Seen My Dongle’ and ‘My Wife Is An Ann Summer’s Rep’ as the album’s innuendo-laden number, and though a little bit more forced (steady) than those previous ones, is a fun doo-wop number that ticks the ‘Carry On’ box.

Reprising the food theme from earlier on ‘Fussy Eater’ and ‘It’s A Barmcake’ are two more fun tracks, the latter offering a new take on ‘Agadoo’ with the age old Facebook debate. 

The Stock-Aitken and Waterman styled ‘Lancashire’s For Me’ is the best song on the LP, its mix of funny lyrics and production style at its peak here.

The album nears its end with ‘Stop in the Name of Fudge’, a Supremes sound-a-like about the shrinking sizes of chocolate bars which isn’t one of the best songs on the album but ties things over nicely, before things end on ‘Dibnah’, a true lighters-out ending that you may have seen on the BBC. A tribute to the famous steeplejack Fred Dibnah, Dramatic, well produced and atmospheric, this is the perfect way to wrap up the album.

‘Nowt Like The 80s’ isn’t a revolutionary album from the comedy-folk band, it’s pretty much what you’d expect from the group in terms of style and sound, but there’s plenty of great new songs to love here and the band still have a great ear for a comedy record whilst also able to create a very distinctive production style. 

Fans of bonus material will also get a CD of intrumentals and another live disc which includes 14 live hits including some of the biggest hits. It’s not a comprehensive set and some are cut from it I think, but it’s well recorded and captures their live spirit.