Jon Langford - All the Fame of Lofty Deeds

Event the aid of some impressive backing musicians can't save an inoffensive album built on gimmicks. Banking a cute Welsh accent and tales of how hard his character parties, Langford peppers lazy lyricism with wisecracks. His silly impression of "Sputnik 57" as chanting "beep beep beep...." panning from speaker to speaker is charmingly hilarious, and his actual singing is always interesting as he sputters though the words. His interplay with the backing band, such as describing John Rice's guitar solo as "playful little fella" also keeps him likable but all the awkward phrases, repetition  and predictable tunes limit the effect of these charms, especially the annoyingly boring first half of the album (except for "Sputnik").