| Nine albums in, and Neil Hannon's taste for archly literate pop - and, indeed, for the occasional saucy gag, delivered with eyebrow curled - remains. "You don't know how much I need you," he croons, on schoolboy's lament `To Die A Virgin, "The `Handy Andy's I've been through." Seemingly a reference to The Divine Comedy's long unavailable debut Fanfare For The Comic Muse, Victory… sees Hannon fronting a band that skimps not on the symphonics, including as it does a thirteen-piece string section, harp, French Horn, and oboe - not to mention a certain Dougie Payne of Travis on bass. A certain jauntiness is in evidence on the galloping `Party Fears Two', originally by Scottish pop act The Associates, but far more dominant here is pathos-laden orchestral suites such as `Snowball In Negative' and the touching `A Lady Of A Certain Age', tale of a faded society girl in the midst of her twilight years: "Your husband's hollow heart gave out one Christmas day/He left the villa to his mistress in Marseilles". Best track here, though, is `Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World', a Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus-type number which invokes the memory of the paranormal-obsessed British sci-fi author with comic results. --Louis Pattison |
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