This Leaden Pall

This Leaden Pall is the fourth album released by UK rock band Half Man Half Biscuit in 1993.

The album cover features a bleak overdeveloped picture of the now demolished Hale Wood pub in Halewood, Merseyside. In 2001 it was voted the 93rd best LP sleeve of all time in Q Magazine.^[2]

Anecdotely, lead singer Nigel Blackwell has referred to the album as their Closer.

At the time of its release, NME writer Johnny Cigarettes gave the album a 6/10 review, describing "Running Order Squabble Fest" as "a mini-epic of Spinal Tap proprtions" and Blackwell as "the only rival to Vic Reeves in making cultural ephemera unfeasibly funny".^[3] The same publication revisited the album in 1999, with John Robinson stating that it "understood just as much as OK Computer the bravery needed to accomplish modern living".^[4]

Track listing

1. "M-6-ster"
2. "4AD3DCD"
3. "Running Order Squabble Fest"
4. "Whiteness thy name is Meltonian"
5. "This Leaden Pall"
6. "Turned up Clocked on Laid off"
7. "Improv Workshop Mimeshow Gobshite"
8. "13 Eurogoths floating in the Dead Sea"
9. "Whit Week Malarkey"
10. "Doreen"
11. "Quality Janitor"
12. "Floreat Inertia"
13. "Malayan Jelutong"
14. "Numanoid Hang-glide"
15. "Footprints"

References