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Sometimes you want to forget things and escape from the seriousness of it all. Life is better if you can view it with a sense of humour and on that note let me introduce you to The Lancashire Hotpots and their second album Pot Sounds. They give a working class northern view on things in their life.

Be prepared to throw away that downcast look for the duration of this album, if you aren’t in tears of laughter at some point during this I will buy you a pint, because you need it to lighten you up. If you chuckle at Peter Kay or Paddy McGuinness you will certainly be rolling by the time the Hotpots are finished.

I Fear Ikea, that is a statement that I second and also one of the funniest observational songs you are ever likely to hear. They sum up what we all have said at some point about the Swedish version of hell, but they are far more witty than myself as the line “it’s the size of Belgium but there’s no bloody staff”. They pay homage to Youtube, and anyone that has ever gone searching for videos on there will be nodding with a silly grin on their face whilst listening to I Heart You Tube.

All songs in the Lancashire dialect add to the happy and endearing feeling this album creates, even when they tackle the issue of piracy on Deirdre you can’t help but laugh to yourself with the picture they create and that is their talent, creating pictures. ESC ALT F4 may have some of the gents reading this review stifling embarrassed laughter, for the ladies it is about being careful with your internet history and covering your tracks (I am sure you can read in between the lines).

A personal favourite has to be Indie Disco about generic music and being ‘hip’, it takes a swipe at everything I loathe and they say it exactly how I want it to be said; those of you that think NME is the best comic on the market will greatly appreciate it. They are forward thinking too, they have come up with the way that we can guarantee medals at the 2012 Olympics by introducing The Beer Olympics. It contains a line many would like to come true “we can all go out on the lash funded by lottery cash”, well we can dream.

They have the ability to do a power ballad too… sort of, The Girl from Bargain Booze is a tale of adultery but somehow I am almost falling off my chair as tears run down my face, only they could do this.

Forget the Credit Crunch, forget dropping house prices and let some funshine into your life, and that’s what they provide, in buckets. This is a comical romp, it isn’t a classical album that critics will be waxing lyrical about in 20 years time and neither should it be. It is meant to be fun and it is.

Rating 10/10 – This is my Pot Sound to lift the gloom.

Reviewed by Darren