Peel Sessions ep - Strange Fruit 1987.

Live At The Witch Trials - Step Forward/IRS 1979.

Best lyric is at the beginning of "Mother-Sister" -
Unidentified voice: "Ehhh... what's this song about?"
Mark Smith: "Uhh...nothin'!"

Reader Comments

jasonhenn@yahoo.com
here's the plan:

i disagree with a few things in your review of Live at the Witch Trials. i don't really have any problem with the guitar on this record. martin braham was one of the better guitarists in the history of the shifty fall line-up. in fact, he was responsible for the arrangement of the music on that album. the keyboard noodling - i always felt - almost makes the album. it adds a really eerie feel and really compliments all of the other stuff that's going on.

i also think that it's not very fair to place this record beside other albums of the period by pointing out how much it sounds like fairly standard punk/post-punk. this may true to some extent, but i think that this album is really the beginning and end of that mode of music. yes, i said it and it's true. witch trials is the first and last punk record. not that all other music in the genre is bad, but most of it is made obsolete by this record (among some other things).

that's about it. thanks for giving witch trials a good review. most people are partial to the beggars banquet stuff and don't really give proper praise to the rough trade albums. i personally think that everything post-rough trade is fair at best (yes, even ...saving grace), and everything post-bb doesn't deserve any recognition.

thanks for a great site.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
It's a heck of an impressive debut. The lyrics make a strong impression and the music stands up with the heavyweights of the day (people like Pere Ubu, prime-grade Siouxsie & the Banshees, & Wire). Unlike anything else in their catalogue and a singular masterpiece.

tedium2000@hotmail.com.nz (Duane Zarakov)
martin bramah continued doing this kind of woozy psychedelic "circus music" for at least 1 alb. and some singles with his next group the Blue Orchids. you should check em if you like this album and that Peel Session one cuz those sound more like the B.Orchids than they do like much else by the Fall.

Live 77 - Cog Sinister 1999.

Dragnet - Step Forward 1979.

Reader Comments

ricochet@iconz.co.nz (Steve Cragie)
I've been a huge Fall fan from when I first heard them on the Electric Circus LP just before "Bingo Masters" came out. I have to disagree about Dragnet being inferior to Witch Trials. I reckon Dragnet was the first Fall masterpiece. You have to remember what it was like when it first came out! It was absolutely peerless. I couldn't believe anyone had made a record as good as this. I was about 16 when it was released and I listened to Dragnet many times a day for weeks on end in an adolescent obsession the excitement of which I will never forget and that can only be relived through the Fall (with any consistency at any rate. Witch Trials (although brilliant) doesn't have anything approaching the mystery and poetry of the groundbreaking sound (what you refer to as lo-fi - a term not around then). I think "Various Times" was the bridge between the old punkier Fall and the Dragnet sound. I tend to think of Dragnet as the first true Fall album (and as the first in the brilliant succession of albums which featured Marc Riley after that).

dongmin@ucr.edu (John Middle)
Must stand in agreement with Mista Cragie....most impenetrable yet rewarding of albums....has it all...Lee Scratch Perry meets a blender uptown production qualities...Also .. "don't let anyone know where this was recorded or else" combined with Specter v.s Rector recorded in haunted house at midnight mythology...nice literary references.... Luke Rheinhardts-"Diceman". Sand paper larynyx lyrics "look at me ... too much SPEEEEEEEED". Topped off with the dark consuming light album cover that would comprise any "young bands" dream. Spider descends on butterfly. To relax and slip into the cogs and gears of this sabotaged machine is bliss defined....Nice one on site Prindle.. LUV from KingShag a.k.a John Middle....A Californian who always thinks of sex....or thinks of death.

wwwinfo@lung.miss.ac.uk
I agree that dragnet is the first (andbest) real fall album. It coincides with a new lineup, new drummer, guitarist and bassist, and ditching the keyboard.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
I was gonna buy Hex Enduction Hour but they were all out. So I got this one. And hey, whaddya know, it sounds like the Fall! I don't quite understand all the rave reviews I've read of it, because Grotesque pretty much did the same thing, only a whole lot better. That's not to say this isn't a real good album, but if you've heard Grotesque, you've pretty much heard what this sounds like. So why should you even get it? Well, most of the songs are really really good in that Fall kinda way. "Choc-Stock" is pretty bad, but I really like "Flat of Angles." It's "Muzorewi's Daughter" that I can't stand. Everything else is really great. Oh! "Spectre Vs. Rector!" That's a WEIRD one! That's, like, total horror movie music, man. Listen to that riff! That's pure evil! And the first half sounds like it was recorded in a big dark spooky cave! Some say it's poor production, I say it's really cool! So, ah, I give this an... eight! My least favorite Fall album so far, but it's still really good.

Oh, one more thing: Fall lyrics are really really really great. Pay attention to them.

earlew@home.com (Earle White)
I would have to break the tie and say that Dragnet is far better than ...Witch Trials (and every other Fall album for that matter). Although Grotesque is a close second, and could be seen as a continuation in formula and sound, it is no where near as menacing, scathing, daring, uncomproming, and groundbreaking as Dragnet. As band's like Pavement obviously modeled their best work (Slanted and Enchanted) after Grotesque, basically straight-up ripping off "New Face in Hell" and calling it "Conduit for Sale"......other more obscure bands such as Chicago's Scissor Girls have taken Dragnet's fucked brilliance into their own dimension of sound, as if they were posessed by "Spectre vs. Rector" (which personally, is my favorite Fall song). It's this quality of the Fall's material that I find so appealing though, that they have always changed. If you don't like this album...give it another chance...and pay special attention to the songs "Dice Man" and "Choc-Stock". Mark E. Smith is daring you to open yourmind, make your own decisions, and take a chance, fan.

RebelJukebox@aol.com
I'm sure I'm the only one who noticed, and the only one who cares, but I'll be damned if The Monorchid didn't rip off "Spector Vs. Rector" in a big way on their song "X Marks The Spot: Something Dull Happened Here," but I noticed it RIGHT away.

Now that I think of it, Chris Thompson's (The Monorchid, Circus Lupus, Skull Kontrol) singing style reminds me of Mark E. Smith in a big way.

Okay, no one who'll read this will care anyway. I'll shut the fuck up.

Gale@beer.com (Nick Gale)
I don't agree that this is their most inpenetrable album - it's actually one of their most accessible. Printhead? Dice Man? Your Heart Out? Neat pop tunes, catchy choruses. Even the longer songs are hypnotically catchy. The only exception is the strangely hilarious Spectre vs Rector.

Fall fans e-mail me!

slim@rainbowm.fsnet.co.uk (Mark Rainbow)
It may be an age thing, but I have always seen "Dragnet" as the first proper Fall album. I found ".. Witch Trials" as a collection too clean, too straight, but "Dragnet" is where MES found his, umm, voice and the band found that Fall sound. Without "Dragnet" the last 20 years would have been considerably different. All this and they still left "Rowche Rumble" off!

Top site! Thanks

Early Years 77-79 - Faulty Products 1981.

Reader Comments

tedium2000@hotmail.com.nz (Duane Zarakov)
yes they are singles,and this group's best stuff.yeah yeah all their albums at least the 1st 200 are fine but they were even better on 7",these ones on Step Forward and the next few on Rough Trade and some other labels i dont remember...GREAT LOST TRACK not on any anthologies that i know about = how i wrote "elastic man" (1980 or so)

dwhitwill@thegrid.net (Debbie Whitwill)
I'm driving home from another day of drudgery and banality when a sudden unexplainable urge causes me to turn left of the dial to the usually mediocre KZSC Santa Cruz. Darn college kids and their boom-de-boom. Upon reaching the station, a voice- a Tourette's victim maybe?- leaps out of the speakers. "WE'RE ROCKING THE CLUBS-AH!!" hollers the obviously trashed frontperson, over a clunky, minimalist, energetically inept backing band. "PSYCHOMAFIA!!!!" At this moment, life as I once knew it ceased. I became reborn.

Totale's Turns (It's Now Or Never) - Rough Trade 1980.

Reader Comments

tedium2000@hotmail.com.nz (Duane Zarakov)
their greatest album,could be.And all others subsequent who have attempted to utilize "rock" to confront reality on the naked plateau of ,uh,whatever it says in the liner notes of the Fugs' Golden Filth,yeah well they should just listen to this and then just fuckin HANG IT UP.other contenders for anything remotely similar are high and few...billy childish's Hangman Communications single on Kill Rock Stars is very good.most "alternative" music is just shitty pop with swearing or guitar distortion or other cosmetic ugliness,right?

Grotesque (After The Gramme) - Rough Trade 1980.

I find this an extremely pleasing album because so much of it sounds loose and improvised, especially in "The N.W.R.A.," when the musicians sort of only play when they feel like it, and the melody only changes after Mark alerts the band, "Switch!" It sounds like they had only played the songs a few times, and weren't exactly sure how they wanted them to go. Very fresh and somewhat exciting (especially when the droning "C'n'C S mithering" suddenly turns into the ridiculously speedy "The Container Drivers" - a masterpiece of a segue). Do buy it.

Reader Comments

Gsboug@aol.com
This was the first Fall studio album I bought (458489 A-sides was the first Fall release I bought) and I began to realize that this band called the Fall is pretty damn good. I agree on you with your point about "C'n'C's Mithering" seguing into "Container Drivers"--genius! "Pay Your Rates", "English Scheme", and "New Face In Hell" make up a perfect trio of songs to open the album. Definitely a 9!

McFarland@ac-tech.com
I like your review of Grotesque. Cantankerous as I am, I really have little to argue with you about on this one. I would note that the music was becoming more obviously lyric-centered by this point than during the 1977-78 bands' work.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Hey now! This sounds like Pavement! One doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that New Face In Hell (the best song on the album, by the way) was clearly the inspiration for Conduit For Sale. Much of the others resemble Pavement in their sloppiness. The version I has several bonus tracks at the beginning, so in addition to the album, you both sides of two great singles, How I Wrote Elastic Man and Totally Wired. Yes, some of the songs go on too long and get me to wondering just when they're going to end (even when they've been going for only two minutes, sometimes) and some of them have melodies that don't go anywhere, but you won't really notice that if you turn the volume up and just enjoy the happy music. Really, this music is really happy! Most of it is, anyway. C n C S Mithering (which reminds me of Mike Franklin by the Low Maintenance Perennials) and Impression Of J Temperance are pretty dark, yes, but the rest is real exciting, upbeat music. Another thing that bugs me is that on my copy there's three seconds of space between C n C S Mithering and Container Drivers, totally destroying the great segue. But who cares? I give it a.... some sort of an eight which oscillates between low and high depending on the mood I'm in. I'm not disappointed, anyway.

Slates ep - Rough Trade 1981.

Reader Comments

waco@primenet.com
Slates is, in fact the best Fall ever, and being on a ten inch record reinforces this rather than negating it!!!!

McFarland@ac-tech.com
"Slates, Slags, Etc." is the most amazing piece of droning chugging noise that I can remember. I love it. It makes the Stooges & the Velvets sound delicate. "Middle Mass" is a great piece as well and "An Older Lover" is brilliantly crafted and strangely poetic. "Leave the Capital" is a good one too.

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
When I consider my favorite songs by The Fall I always include all 6 tracks of the Slates ep. Not necessarily the first six components of the top ten but certainly, without a moment of doubt, the top two songs belong to this release. "Slates, Slags, Etc." is the best Fall song recorded thus far as well as the best song of the early 1980s. "Middle Mass" is the foundation for all of their early work. 33% of Slates is absolutely perfect no matter the perspective taken on the music and the era. A recording like this is actually rather frightening; if I use this to ascertain the depth of quality of their subsequent releases, most of The Fall stock pales.

Legendary Chaos Tape - Scout 1995.

Reader Comments

preservatives@email.msn.com (Michael Fotis)
this recording sucks sucks sucks. mark seems to be in rare form. but the band, particularly scanlon i'm pretty sure, butcher every song. hey mark when you gonna put a picture of yourself up so we can all see what you look like?

Hex Enduction Hour - Kamera 1982.

So what's on it? Well,"Hip Priest" is the classic (boy, it's a weird one), "Who Makes The Nazis?" has a harmonics-only bass line (unheard of since Yes's "The Fish!"), and "Mere Pseud Mag Ed" is another noisy guitar attack (which I'm 99% sure contains the lines "Heard the Ramones in '81/There was a Spanish guitar".....hmmm. I understand his disgust with Pleasant Dreams, but I don't think there's a Spanish guitar on there... hmmm. But then again, who can tell what the hell Mark is actually talking about?). A real interesting record. Or "really," to be grammatically correct. "Real," in and of itself, isn't much of an adverb, but I kind of enjoy it. "Kind of" is a dumb phrase, too, but enjoyable. Even "The Classical," which has the chords of a generic hard rock song, is performed in such a strange, fresh, and tribal manner, you don't even notice how basic the melody is. My only problem with the record is that, unlike those on Grotesque, this particular batch of songs, I think, could have used a little bit more practice. In fact, I've heard live renditions of these songs that sound much more professional than the versions on this album. Still, a true Fall classic, and deservedly so.

Reader Comments

rchute@samschwartz.com
Indeed, Fall songs of this period were much better once taken out on the road and practiced. The definitive version of "Winter" is on A Part of America, Therein which you rightly call their best live album ever. It is in fact possibly my favorite Fall record of all time making it quite possibly my favorite record of all time.

Coupled with the new CD release of In A Hole (the Fall at their most playful not to mention drunk), A Part of America, Therein constitutes great, live Fall at a simpler time for them.

ronin2@email.msn.com (Dave Weigel)
This album, to quote the immortal Shakespeare, is the shit of all shits. Hex Enduction Hour was only about the sixth Fall album I heard, but in my mind this is the quintessential Fall sound. Post-punk and pre-Brix. Four minute songs plus the occasional epic--just like a "real" (i.e. popular) album! More catchy bass and guitar lines than a Foghat jam. And Mark makes no fucking sense whatsoever.

Track-by-track, she wondered? Oui, said the Belgian. "The Classical" is as repetitive and clangy as any other Fall tune, but somehow it rocks. Must be because of those "hard rock" chords Prindle mentioned. "Jawbone..." reminds me of Roy Orbison in that there are so many cool parts, you can't tell where the verses and choruses are. "Hip Priest" is one of the best songs in human history. "Fortress/Dark Park" starts with a sample of "Da Da Da", then launches into a cool prog-rock riff before mutating into a Mark Smith soliloquy and droning synth, all while some weird shit goes on in the background. In other words, the Low Maintenence Perennials.

Am I still going over the album track-by-track? Oh, what's the point? Okay, here's my point--every song rules. "Mere Pseud Mag. Ed"? It rules. "Just Step S'ways"? Kicks arse. "Winter"? Awesome. Both parts. I'll admit, "And this Day" is somewhat less amazing than Our Lord Jesus Christ (which is to say, not that good in comparison to every other song on the album, and it's too long. I'm being frustratingly obtuse, I'm sorry.) But it's still the best Fall album ever. In my opinion. Which doesn't really change anything, because you're wrong.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
Parts of the album drift, but it's an hour long, and by my count posesses, let's see ... 40 - 45 minutes of complete brilliance. The 2-drummer lineup kicks majorly and adds a great deal to the sound. Both Beefheart & Pere Ubu worked with 2 drummers, and in neither case did it work as impressively as with The Fall, where the music sounded natural and powerful. Highlights to me are "The Classical" (despite the bad-taste lyrics - the music is amazing), "Winter", "Deer Park", and "Just Step Sideways".

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The best pre-Brix record for innumerable good reasons. Every song on here is just great; challenging, suffocating at times, and exceptionally involving. Involving... on a rare occasion does a song both require work to enjoy and also posses the quality to allow the listener to thoroughly enjoy the work. The album is very inspired; an untouched balance of inventive music and rediscovered elements of punk. Peter Buck described one particular R.E.M. song as "simultaneously as loose and as tight as anything we've recorded." Mark Smith could take Buck's words and apply them to the entirety of Hex Enduction Hour. Greatness.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Took me what felt like a million years to find, but I did, and it was worth it. This is... you know what? I don't even need to write this. Because you know what else? A Mr. Dave Weigel already wrote what I think of the album already. I guess the only reason I'm writing this is to show to the world that I have this fine album and am therefore cooler than the people who don't. A quality Fall album such as this serves as a musical status symbol, something that you flaunt to people who know music to get respect. Same goes with Can albums. Yes, I like Can. Most of you people have probably never even heard of Can. But they're cool, and I've heard of them, and have four of their albums, so nyah. I'm going to give this a ten, even though I haven't heard every Fall album there is. It would take approximately 7 and a half quadrillion years to wade through the Fall's enormous catalog. If there's a Fall album better than this, let me know (no, not really. Leave me alone.) If you want to know in more detail what I think of the album, go read Weigel's review.

And then try to find this. Just try! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

zalcock@nationalsystems.com
My fave Fall record... based mainly on the first half. Lets put it this way: every time I feel I can't listen to any more Fall-- you know, when you can't force yourself to listen to "Who Makes the Nazis?" simply for being so Fall-ishly obtuse-- I turn back to this album. I think it owes a lot to Leckie's production-- this is the album they nearly made with Perverted by Language. This is the album you listen to at 4am, drunk and in need of something that's loud AND intellectual AND puts fucking chills up your spine. I point, specifically, to "Elves". Yeah, they ripped off the Stooges, but you can't hold it against them-- this is actually light-years better. If only the Fall still sounded this pissed-off... Then you have side 2, which does falter a bit, but I do agree with the common wisdom that says "Disney's" is a downright lovely tune. The other stuff on side 2 isn't bad by any means, it just pales in comparison to side 1. Anyway, this really is the Fall at the height of their powers.

InMyEyes82@aol.com (Zach English)
Mike DeFabio-don't scare people, this album ain't that hard to find. I picked it up in a freakin' Virgin Megastore, probably because it was included in that batch of Cog Sinister re-releases a year or so back.

Anyways, this album is a fucking killer. WHY, jesus christ, has the song "Iceland" not been mentioned?! This is one of the top five pieces the Fall ever recorded, if ya ask me...so chilly and foreign and full of great imagery, it takes the Can influence to its logical pinnacle. Oh, and "The Classical" is far from generic hard rock; I love how the guitar plays the same melody that Mark sings ("I've never felt better in myyyyy liiiiife") over and over again. "Winter" has one of the fucking scariest bass lines I've ever encountered, not to mention the image of a pope's hat with a green fuzz skull and crossbones...jeez, Mark can get pretty far out there. I still don't like this one quite as much as This Nation's Saving Grace, but I'll snub my nose at the Prindle rule and give both albums ten ratings.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Well, Zach, all I can guess from numerous glances through the Fall section at the local Amoeba is that various Fall albums go in and out of print every fifteen minutes. My rule for Fall album buying is, if you see it, get it, because it probably won't be there tomorrow.

A Part Of America Therein, 1981 - Cottage 1982.

Reader Comments

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
Live albums tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. This is probably so because I tend to correlate the live album with Cheap Trick, They Might Be Giants, and other completely worthless musical outfits that find it absolutely imperative to repackage their greatest hits as an act of restitution. The Fall's A Part Of America Therein, however, is a different product completely. It is exceedingly difficult to find copies of "Totally Wired" and other great early material and, presumably, the live format suits these tunes very well. Indeed, the only copy of "Totally Wired" I have found has been the one version on A Part Of America Therein. In addition, the recording closes with a version of "Winter" that is far superior to the original. The entire recording, including the sub-par version of "An Older Lover", is incredibly good.

xx@student.uni-halle.de (John Coan)
A Part of America Therein is rubbish and sounds like it was recorded in a sock...buy The Twenty Seven Points instead for a really fresh, tight sound from the greatest British band ever on top form.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Bought the Slates/A Part Of America Therein CD today. Slates is terrific noisy sloppy Fall madness, but the live album it came with...

Er, the performances and the songs are fantastic, but it sounds like a bootleg and it was mastered from vinyl, so you can barely hear the music under all the pops and tape hiss. The drums lose all their power 'cos they're way in the background, sounding more like your noisy neighbor across the street than a member of the Fall in your living room. Too bad, 'cause they were obviously a wonderful live band at that time. And the set list is great too--NWRA, Hip Priest, Totally Wired... dangit. I payed 18 hard earned bucks for this (okay, it was gift money, but it was graduation gift money and I WORKED FOUR YEARS FOR IT!), and I'm only ever gonna listen to about 23 minutes of it. Maybe I should just burn myself a copy of Slates and take it back 'cos I'm a cheap butthead.

Hey, here's a funny anecdote. This girl in my visual arts class had to do a presentation and a short essay on a musician/artist person, and she wanted to do one on someone she'd never heard of, so I, rather randomly, suggested Brian Eno. Now, she axed me this about an hour before she had to do the presentation, so naturally, it didn't go very well. The next day it was understandable that she didn't want to write the paper, so she offered me fifteen dollars if I'd write it for her. Me, being a weak person of no integrity who can be bought at any price, agreed. I wrote the paper. She got a D-. SHE GOT A D MINUS ON MY PAPER.

The moral of this story: if you're going to sell out, at least make Nevermind, not the frickin' Black Album.

Room To Live - Kamera 1982.

Reader Comments

waco@primenet.com
"Papal Visit" is in fact the best track on RTL and maybe in the top four or five Fall tracks for me.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
Certainly not their best, but I think "Joker Hysterical Face" actually IS one of their best, and "Hard Life In Country" is a great chugging low-fi drone.

dolores@whaven.freeserve.co.uk (Dolores Coan)
Room to Live is commonly thought to be the worst Fall album - it's certainly the most self-indulgent, by a long chalk, and pretentious, in the worst sense of the word. Around this time, MES' head started to wander arsewards and this wasn't RECTified until Brix came along. Stop it stop it stoppit...the man wasn't a God, and the Fall recorded some real slop occasionally.....this being, as a whole, the worst example.

bougops@bu.edu (Greg Bougopoulos)
A great album indeed, as was the Fall's '80s custom. "Papal Visit" is a piece of crap disguised as a song and you're correct Mark that some of the songs don't have much of a true vision of what they're supposed to be. However, The Fall works very well under these conditions and "Hard Life In Country", among others, are damn good. And what's with the sax in the title track? That's quality my friend. I'll give it an 8.

Fall In A Hole - Flying Nun 1983.

Reader Comments

MSnodden@aol.com
You probably know this already, but In a Hole has been released officially in the U.K. with all the cracks and drop-outs of my vinyl copy lovingly preserved.

tedium2000@hotmail.com.nz (Duane Zarakov)
i live in new zealand ... i'll probably never leave.

Live To Air In Melbourne '82 - Cog Sinister 1998.

Perverted By Language - Rough Trade 1983.

But for now, let's talk about THIS album. Eight songs - only three of them shorter than five minutes long. "Eat Y'self Fitter" is a completely misleading record-opener - it sounds completely amateurish, silly, and, eventually, mind-numbingly dull. Howe'er, the rest of the album is mature, professional, and a patootie of a repetition-fest! "Neighborhood Of Infinity" and "I Feel Voxish" are the kickbutt pop rockers, and they're better than a lollipop; Mark even SINGS on "I Feel Voxish!" (hence the title, I suppose), and you can't beat that swank bass line. Speaking of bass lines, that's pretty much all there is to the nine-minute "Tempo House" (well, a bass line and two drummers), but, unlike "Eat Y'self Fitter," it becomes hypnotic over the course of time (instead of just boring). "Smile" reaches for emotions that it doesn't quite grasp, but, oh man, you should hear "Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot." Probably the darkest, bluesiest song they've ever written, this one conjures up some awfully disturbing images if you listen to it while you're walking down a cold deserted NYC alleyway in the cold of winter in the dead of night with no one to talk to but the soulless moon and some Mexican guy.

This is a good album, unless you've got a short attention span, in which case you wouldn't have read this far in the first place. Maybe I should get my head out of my ass.

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
Hiya Mark! (in joke for M.Riley fans....) Decent site, decent site, plenty to take issue with here...... I find this one of the weaker lp's..... maybe it's because I'm not a massive fan of Brix. I read somewhere that the producer (forget his name, thank God) made them do several takes of "Eat Y'self Fitter" (the slogan of an advertising campaign for a British breakfast cereal....), hence they sound completely bored on the version included therein.

data@havoc.gtf.gatech.edu
Actually, "Eat Y'self Fitter" is one of my favorite Fall songs .. just so you know somebody likes it .. just don't accuse me of having good taste

preservatives@email.msn.com (Mike F.)
"eat y'self fitter" is the best song the fall ever did.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
You're missing out on "Eat Y'Self Fitter". I think it's a rather remarkable piece. Like much of this album it's lyrically centered, totally non-commercial, and thoroughly brilliant.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Not bad. Two of the bonus tracks (Man Whose Head Expanded and Wings) are cool, while the other two (Ludd Gang and Kicker Conspiracy) don't do much for me. Eat Y'Self Fitter becomes really annoying after a while. Neighborhood of Infinity is real good. Garden is pretty, in a weird kinda way. Hotel Bloedel is pleasant enough. Smile is darker than Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot, yes it is, yes it is, and Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot is pretty dark. Um... Tempo House is relatively good at holding my attention, for a song that's just a bass line. And what's that other one? I Feel Voxish. That's good too. And there's this other one, Pilsner Trail, that I think is an outtake or something. It's alright.

There.

This gets an eight from me.

The end.

s_gillespie@rkadv.com
Everyone calls this the Fall's first "accessible" (i.e.: Brix) album. Some even think this album is funny. For me, it's their darkest, least commercial, haunting effort. Would be perfect, but "Eat Y'self Fitter" seems a little light-hearted and out of place with the rest of it (unless it's an indirect swipe at Hitler's vegetarianism). But how 'bout the rest! As a two-drummer piece, "Smile" is better than anything on "Hex Enduction Hour," "Tempo House" seems to precede De La Soul and all that lo-fi hip-hop by, like, six years - and "Strife Knot" ends the album on a sick/ironic note. "Strife is Life" is hardly an optimistic way to close an album that is cluttered with references to Nazism/World War II. Don't let that pink cover fool you.

ianbrill@hotmail.com
Actually, Mark, Brix was in the band and then Mark married her. Ever seen the video for "Eat Y'Self Fitter"? Funnier than any episode of "Everybody Loves Rabies," mixed drinks, Halloween masks and some bouncer grabbing Mark by the shirt: a comedy cocktail for one and all!

* Palace Of Swords Reversed - Rough Trade/Cog Sinister 1987. *

If you're only gonna get one Fall record, try to find this one. Before this, they were basically circus punk, after this, they were basically conservative guitar pop, and during this period, most of their album tracks were about ten minutes long, so this is a good place to start. The songs are short, smart, and all-out rockin'! (My personal favorite moment on the record: The middle of "The Man Whose Head Expanded," when Mark gets tired of the "sci-fi" keyboard noises and shouts, "Turn that bleeding blimey space invader off!!!" Seconds later, it's gone. That's power.)

Reader Comments

hamilton@panther.middlebury.edu (Mark C. Hamilton 00)
Spot on assessment of In a Palace of Swords Reversed, quite definitely the best Fall album. A matter of fact, it is the album that turned me onto the Fall (and certainly not The Frenz Experiment). If you're going to praise "Wings" for its great (and only riff), why not praise its lyrics, the best of any Fall song. It sounds like MES has really lost his mind on this one, rambling on about some time travel fantasy involving gremlins, Civil War veterans and God knows what else. This was the song that made me think, just possibly, that MES was a schizophrenic. Well, that and "Oswald Defence Lawyer." I've since realized that he is, in fact, a genius. The lyrics to "Wings" are ample proof of that.

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
A good amount of points have been deducted for this being a compilation despite the presence of some very difficult to find singles. Nevertheless, from the few listenings I have found the time for in the past ten days I can make some absolute statements: "Putta Block", "Kicker Conspiracy", and "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" represent some of the best material The Fall produced in their second stage. Most definitely the terrific "Kicker Conspiracy", a testament to putting that sometimes expendable second drummer to use. As for the studio version of "Totally Wired", I'll hold on to my copy of A Part Of America Therein. Now, as far as the "Wings" guitar riff goes... someone out there should go out and buy a used copy of the mediocre album The Sky's Gone Out by seminal "goth" outfit Bauhaus. Not too many great songs but do take note of the second track "Silent Hedges"; the bass line is far, far more impressive then what (I assume) Scanlon does with the guitar here. In fact I'm quite sure that Scanlon took this bass line in question and reworked it for "Wings". At any rate, this is good as far as compilations go. By no means a good substitute for a "real" effort, however.

The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall - Beggars Banquet/PVC 1984.

Perhaps she was thinking of "Disney's Dream Debased."

Or maybe she was just a flake.

WAGERS, ANYONE????????

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
I think you're way off the mark on this one. THIS was the real turning point, finally a 'well-produced' record (although don't get me wrong, I love the scratchiness of the earlier stuff) by John Leckie who later became a big-time record producer with the likes of the Stone Roses, no recommendation I know but still, you gotta respect his bank balance. There isn't a weak track on here, and the likes of "Slang King" are just immense. "Copped It"! "Bug Day"! "Elves"! Are you DEAF Mr Prindle?!

Gsboug@aol.com
I disagree with you on this one, a bit. I would agree with you if you were inclined to put down "Bug Day" (what a boring, waste of space) but everything else is excellent. Gavin Friday might interfere somewhat with the songs (what is he doing on the album, anyway) but the songs are strong enough as it is. "Disney's Dream Debased" is one of the most beautiful Fall songs, and basically everything else is classic Fall. And I am not even considering the singles and B-sides put on the CD reissue when making my point. They would only get better with the following year's studio album.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
Well, I like it a bit more than you do. It's a strange, impressionistic album by a solid band. I think the bonus tracks on the CD are even better than the LP tracks though - "Pat-Trip Dispenser", "God-Box", the brilliant "No Bulbs", "Draygo's Guilt", "Oh! Brother" ... this seems like The Fall's golden age to me.

azitelli@stevens-tech.edu
I can't stand hearing that guy's voice in "copped it". i have to skip the song! for me, it kind of prevents this album from getting the credit it deserves. it's crazy pop/rock done by the Fall. "Lay of the Land" and "2x4" rock hard at the outset, "Elves" is perfect (sounds like "I wanna be your dog" though), and "Disney" is one of their or anyone's most beautiful songs. Though I think it drags at times ("Bug Day"?!?!?), the swingin pop of "Oh Brother" and "No Bulbs" help lift this album to a rating of 8.5

chhodgkins@hotmail.com (Charles Hodgkins)
'Craigness' signifies to me everything that is great about the Fall. Sing-song minimalism reaching a powerful and painfull climax. Does any other Fall song use a 5/4 time signature like this one? Yet it doesn't stick out like Rush or Crimson. The ENTIRE album is thick with MES' extra-sensory vocalisation similar to 'Wings,' yet there is a new confidence (plus vocal distortions) which create the impression that real demons are doing the singing.

InMyEyes82@aol.com
On a whole, nowhere near as good as the subsequent album would be, but filled to the brim with amazing songs anyway. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that "Lay of the Land" would be my favorite Fall song I've ever laid my ears upon. I LOVE how the music cuts and MES just says "What's the lay of the land, my son?" and the heavy guitars just kick in right behind him, and when that cool little harmonic scrapy guitar thing comes in. Genius. "2 x 4" is great, "Elves" is surprisingly good for a Stooges rip-off, "Clear Off!" has some beautiful little wavy guitar lines, and "Slang King" is funky fun. Of course, "Disney's Dream Debased" is the kicker; just so beautiful. The rest is merely okay, I'll concur (especially the lame-lame-lame guest vocals that sound like my grandmother having a hernia), but about half the album is essential. 8/10

This Nation's Saving Grace - Beggars Banquet/PVC 1985.

The only reason I didn't give this one a 10 is cuz I've never been too fond of their CAN tribute, "I Am Damo Suzuki," or their James Brown rip-off, "Gut Of The Quantifier." But that's just me talkin'. Most people love them. As a result, this is by a wide margin the most popular Fall album of all time (which means it's probably sold about two thousand copies - you see, they're what you might call a CULT band).

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
"Gut of the Quantifier" sounds more like a cover version by an English noise band called World Domination Enterprises of "Funky Town" by ??????? Another classic. "What You Need" is right up there in my Fall Top Ten.

Brock.H.Read@williams.edu
i'm one of the majority who loves 'i am damo suzuki;' i think it's the most haunting thing they've ever done. 'rollin' dany' is hilarious, 'barmy' sounds like the clash only better, and $20 says pavement was listening to 'couldn't get ahead' when they wrote 'conduit for sale!' i'd give it a 10, but i like your review...

McFarland@ac-tech.com
First Fall album I got into. I think the band's sound is extremely solid and the production is pretty good too ... it's almost a little too "solid" in places. But the Beefheart-like insistence of "My New House", the Zeppelin-meets-Beefheart rhythmic flailing of "Gut of the Quantifier", the brilliantly abstract "Paint Work", the ragged swing of "What You Need", the garage classic "Cruiser's Creek", and the gothic "I Am Damo Suzuki" all work for me and make this a great record.

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The random quality of this release adds an element of texture to this otherwise entertaining but Fall-lite studio effort. Not a cohesive work by any stretch of the imagination, this one succeeds on moments alone: "My New House", "Paintwork", "Spoilt Victorian Child", "Barmy", and "Cruiser's Creek" are only a few of the songs that make the Brix-era particularly memorable. The CD release includes the outstanding b-side "Petty (Thief) Lout" as well; this is a good, very solid purchase. The CD release loses points with the inclusion of the following: "Rollin' Dany", "I Am Damo Suzuki", "L.A.", "Couldn't Get Ahead", "Gut Of The Quantifier", "Bombast", and "Vixen". There is absolutely zero trend to follow in this record; the light "Rollin' Dany" is precariously placed at the conclusion of the record alongside the darkly ludicrous "I Am Damo Suzuki". "L.A.", "Vixen", and "Couldn't Get Ahead" are no-impact filler that have absolutely no direction.

If I had to reduce this recording's selling point to one tune I wouldn't hesitate in naming "Paintwork". I consider this piece to be the turning point for The Fall; at this point they were able to neatly integrate their early, droning delicacy with the super-production of their later work. Strong, remarkably original composition. Even the quality of songs like "I Am Damo Suzuki" is increased exponentially by virtue of their position in relation to "Paintwork". Which, to reiterate, is why I consider this to be a good purchase.

InMyEyes82@aol.com
Great production. Killer melodies. Rapid-fire lyricism. This band has (had?) it all in one package, and I'm slowly growing obsessed with them. This Nation's Saving Grace is prime-grade Fall (at least my version with "Barmy" and "Petty Thief Lout" is). "Bombast" is the hardest rocker they've ever done, but then they could switch to flaky guitar pop like "Vixen" and do it just as well. I like Brix's voice; the California-gal thing is a great contrast for MES' choc-stock didacticism. 10/10

express1@inwind.it
This nation..was the first Fall record i've bought on 19...bah!who care.Think i'm the only one fan of MES in Italy.OK! very explosive tunes!"Gut...""Spoilt Victorian" and "I am Damo.." spits good rockabilly wicked grooves.For me,the better record than ever!

The Fall ep - PVC 1986.

What am I talking about? Where would you possibly know that song from? Just ignore me.

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
"Rollin Danny" is a Gene Vincent cover, apparently.....

McFarland@ac-tech.com
"Rollin' Dany" really rocks (hard). Furthermore "Barmy" is one of the best Fall tracks I've ever heard - the music sounds like classic Stax soul but with a madman's confession and modern "80's" production techniques over top of it. Inclusion of this stuff onto the This Nation's ... CD makes it a must-buy.

Bend Sinister - Beggars Banquet 1986.

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
Another weak one. The Fall on autopilot. The live band around this time was awesome, however.

preservatives@email.msn.com (Michael Fotis)
the worst fall album I've heard so far on the quest to own every release. stay away.

twootton@thomtax.co.uk (Tom Totale)
I listened to Bend Sinister last night while in a severe state of inebriation. "ROD", "British Grenadiers", & "Riddler" are excellent. And Mark, do you ever pale at the thought of allowing Fall fans to comment interminably upon your judgements? You have created a monster.

GBougops@aol.com
Apart from a few dark moments (the great "R.O.D." being the best of them), this album is not as bleak as I've heard; a little moody but that's it. Anyway, pretty good, though it can't match This Nation. "Shoulder Pads" is one of the happiest sounding Fall songs ever, "Terry Waite Sez" and "Mr. Pharmacist" are great, and "Dktr. Faustus" is pretty cool as well. An 8.

NWALTERS.GOSW@go-regions.gsi.gov.uk (Nick Walters)
Bend Sinister remains my favourite Fall album, despite the excellence of Light User and Levitate. BS is the Fall's Heart of Darkness, a lurching, sometimes ludicrous, thunderous beast. "Dktr. Faustus" has such an air of Satanic doom, knowing the play helps accentuate this. "Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers" is the sound of a hungover thunderstorm. "US 80s 90s" is the first song I heard that attracted me to The Fall; I remember thinking, "How? How did they arrive at this?" BS came from out of nowhere like a bolt of black lightning and changed my life forever. "Was introduced, by a wo-man, loose-limbed, slim..." "Bend Sinister" is the perfect synthesis of belligerence and beauty.

Pepik.Silacek@seznam.cz (Josef)
I saw the Fall for the first time on the Bend Sinister Tour. This might not be the best album The Fall have ever made, but it's my favourite, mainly due to the fact that as mentioned, at this point they did some amazing gigs. Me huh? I'd give this a 9. The tape version came with a pretty fast and hectic live version of City Hobgoblins (renamed "Town and Country Hobgoblins").

Itchload@aol.com
I'm very new to The Fall, and i'd have to say that it was a combination of this site and Pavement reviews that lead me to finally pick up some of their stuff. I really really like it..it's very strange. They're one of those bands where you instantly like them, or they were for me at least. Mark's voice isn't nearly as whiny as i thought it would be, it's more nasally and it sounds really awesome. I'm really looking for the Hex Enducation album, because i've heard the Classical and really loved that (what's with the N-word though?, i heard that cost them a contract with a major record label), and love Perverted by Language (same era), but as that bastard above pointed out, it's impossible to find. However, I jsut picked Bend Sinister to review because i guess it's the "underrated Fall album" (i.e. experimental jet set for sy, tromple le monde for pixies, ext). I really like Bend Sinister, and it has a great album cover (the frenz experiment has a terrible cover!). I just finished buying all 400 guided by voices albums, and now i have to go buy the rest of the fall's...these disturbingly prolific bands will be bankrupt me eventually...why hasn't there been any guided by voices talk at this site by the way?

p.s. Who'd have though Mark Prindle looks like Bill Pullman

Domesday Pay-Off - Big Time 1987.

Reader Comments

kek@global-sas.co.uk
'There`s a ghost in my house' was originally done by R Dean Taylor (I think) and was a minor hit in the UK I seem to remember. It was a sort of Tamla-ish track with a pseudo-Psych fuzz-guitar. The Fall brought it out as a 7" single in the UK (with a hologram cover). There was also a video that feature Brix dematerialising in some old house.... But you probably already knew this... The Fall version is pretty faithful to the original version in a twisted kinda way...

BBC Radio 1 Live In Concert - Windsong 1993.

The Frenz Experiment - Big Time 1988.

Reader Comments

M.Eisenkraft@Juno.com (Michael Eisenkraft)
OK, let's start from the beginning. As a 60's rock weenie (the Stones, Dylan, etc.) I had a hard time believing I'd like listening to a hard, punkish band with a freak for a lead singer. Well, I didn't like the Fall, I loved them. I listened to this album over 50 times on the way to work and it is great. "Carry Bag Man" is great (though I thought he says "Carry Fat Man", who cares anyway?), and so were a lot of other tracks, but I don't really want to talk about them. What I want to do is praise "Oswald Defense Lawyer", one of the best songs I have ever heard. It is more than catchy, it is almost hypnotizing. I love the voices, the guitar, hell I like everything about this song. I cannot praise it enough. If you haven't heard it, go buy this album NOW!

McFarland@ac-tech.com
You used the word pointless in your review. That word sums up my feelings regarding this album when I bought it way back when, and 11 years later it still sums up my feelings. This is where things started to degrade. My theory is that the band missed Karl Burns badly.

daveabe@scott.net (Dave)
Wow! Great Album, definitey highly recommended. "Athlete Cured" is very humorous and Frenz is a superb piece of work. Timeless alternative pop!

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
Another "almost" effort by The Fall; if "Frenz" did not sound as if an 80's rock outfit were being used as a reference point, if "Hit The North" were only a bit more than the fundamental synthesizer foundation, if "Bremen Nacht" did not qualify as the dullest Fall dance number thus far then the strengths of genuine songs like "Carry Bag Man", "The Steak Place", and especially "Get A Hotel" would not be diminished. Still, this material is superior to the greater preponderance of the material on the criminally disappointing This Nation's Saving Grace. And despite the three songs that qualify as nothing but complete filler, this record works as a performance piece that is relatively easy to play daily.

s_gillespie@rkadv.com
This seems to be the album that Fall fans are split on the most. Obviously, it's easy to dismiss this as an annoying, repetitive pop sell out for which Brix was largely responsible. Wrong! Brix only co-wrote one song on the album - and if you look at the credits, all the best songs (Carry-Bag Man, Frenz, Athlete Cured, Bremen Nacht, and In these Times, to a lesser extent) were written by Mark exclusively. This, in fact, is the only Fall album where more than half the songs are Mark E. Smith's exclusively. Now, the point is this: for a band whose sensibility was founded on an economy of repetition, it's natural that they would make an album where every song was structured around the repetition of a three word phrase - variation could be measured against the consistency that repetition established. Didn't some guy in Spin magazine say that Mark could do more with three guitar chords than most could do with all eight. Well anyway, this album seems proof to me that you don't need much more than a three-word chant to make a kick-ass song. In any event, if you don't like this album, don't blame it on Brix.

GBougops@aol.com
Another slip down, but not that much. The cover of "Victoria" betters the original, and "Carry Bag Man" and "Bremen Nacht" are also among the best here. Still, there aren't really any true knockouts ("Victoria" aside) here, though nothing really bad. Score of 7.

I Am Kurious Oranj - Beggars Banquet/RCA 1988.

Yes, just like The Frenz Experiment, this sounds like a modern pop/rock album with absolutely no rough edges (sounds like it was dipped in Vaseline or something), but boy does "New Big Prinz" ROCK in its cleanliness, and man, does Brix's "Overture" sound like the best song Survivor ever recorded, and girl, does "Jerusalem" have a great story about Mark tripping on a "discarded-ah banana skin-ah" and hitting his head on a "protruding-ah brick-ah chip-ah," and puppy is "Kurious Oranj" a wondermous merging of pop and reggae, and buttplug do I like "Van Plague." The rest is more of the same, and kind of forgettable, but you have to keep in mind - this was the soundtrack to a BALLET. Imagine a troupe trying to pirouette to "Cab It Up!" and maybe you'll start to understand why I gave it an 8. Still, why so predictable? Was the marriage already falling apart?

Reader Comments

McFarland@ac-tech.com
Stop picking on Brix! The woman was a hell of a guitar player and brought a lot into a great band. I think it's silly to dwell on her sex. She did a lot for this band. Her "Yes O Yes" music here is brilliant I think. The one other worthwhile track hereon is the brilliant "Jerusalem".

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The best, most cohesive piece of work by The Fall during the Brix-era because, at long lost, The Fall genuinely wanted to put down a complete album of songs that fit together quite nicely rather than throwing 12 singles onto a tape and calling that an effort. As far as Fall evolution goes, this is also the most sizable departure from the days of Hex Enduction Hour. The sound that the band worked with on "Paintwork" is fully developed on this sprawling masterpiece of radio-ready tunes. Although each individual song may not be the pinnacle of quality like the tunes on Slates, I hasten to mention that when listened to as a whole experience this is the most satisfying recording since Perverted By Language.

GBougops@aol.com
A step up from Frenz, this has a handful of great numbers. The "Overture" is pretty nice, "Jerusalem" is the fall at their doomiest best, and "Big new Prinz" and "Wrong Place, Right Time" have to contain some of the most delicious basslines in the Fall's career (can you call it a career?). An 8.

Seminal Live - Beggars Banquet 1989.

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
I agree with you, filler material city.

ctc7421@us1.edu (Chadwick Crawford)
Seminal Live was my first Fall, and there must be something there, because I've bought four more albums since, and will buy more when I get a paycheck that's not instantly rent-bound. Although some of the live versions contained therein are nowhere near as good as the album versions, all of them are strong (except maybe "Kurious Oranj"), and MES is trying his damnedest. The cover of "Pinball Machine" is the quintessential Country and Northern song, in my opinion. "Frenz" here is maybe better than the original. Contrary to some of the FAQs I've seen, this is not a bad first album, especially since it spans what, 3, 4 albums of material, and gives you both Brixish pop ("Cruisers' Creek," "L.A.") and scathing experimental noise ("Squid Law"). If you don't like this, you won't like the Fall.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
A disappointment. The live stuff basically bites. Again, I think they really missed Karl, Simon just couldn't support the sound at this time. The new studio songs were indeed pretty good. This is like 1/2 a Fall album.

458489 A Sides - Beggars Banquet/RCA 1990.

Reader Comments

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The release of 458489 A Sides is irrelevant for two arguable reasons: the songs included on the release include 3 cover songs. Fairly bad cover songs, at that. This one point and the following: the Brix-era material was best suited to the confines of a full studio album. I'm not certain The Fall were ever a singles-oriented band. Where 458489 A Sides is mentioned, I hark back to Pink Floyd's Works for filing under the "No Need To Purchase" heading.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
Pretty cool! This is real... real good. Good good stuff stuff. Favorites: CREEP, No Bulbs 3, Cruiser's Creek, Hey Luciani... well, they're all great except for There's A Ghost In My House, Big New Prinz and Wrong Place Right Time No. 2. And those ones aren't even BAD! And I don't care if it IS a compilation, it flows pretty well, I think. Just like an album. Next I'm gonna get something earlier, like the Smile! compilation, which I don't see reviewed here, so I'll have to add a whole bunch of little comments on Totale's Turns, Grotesque, Slates, and Perverted By Language, and whatever else was used to make the compilation (I've done research. Can'tcha tell?) Meanwhile, I give this one a large 9 and a side of fries.

paulst@wfs.co.uk (Paul Stewardson)
My first Fall record! (after years of listening to other peoples Fall records I thought it was time I actually bought something by them). "Dead Beat Descendent" and "Hey! Luciani" are fantastic. Mark, the little warning about the "Mr Pharmacist"/girlfriend was the funniest thing I've heard for ages.

ajburgess@leicester.anglican.org (Anthony J. Burgess)
Has anyone else noticed that when you look at the back cover of the CD from about a foot away, all the titles in red and yellow appear raised above the ones written in blue? Freaky.

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
I'd like to lower my grade to a seven. These songs are good but are nothing compared to the awesome early stuff.

458489 B Sides - Beggars Banquet 1990.

Reader Comments

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The accompanying b-sides release is almost essential, however. There are several supporting arguments to this: 458489 B Sides completely eliminates the need to purchase the reprehensibly ill-planned The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall for the b-sides collection includes the tunes that make the aforementioned studio effort somewhat acceptable. There are two additional implications of not owning The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall: the presence of one of the devil's imps singing background vocals is cut in half with the purchase of the b-sides collection. I refer to the inclusion of "Clear Off!" on 458489 B-Sides and the simple fact that, without owning The Wonderful... you absolutely eliminate the chance of hearing "Copped It". Which is an exceedingly good thing to eliminate. More importantly, 31 b-sides have been compiled on two discs. This is no small gift; this effectively retires the need of feeling it an absolute necessity to procure any of their "official" singles.

GBougops@aol.com
I would have to give this a 7 at best. There are many great songs here, but the majority of them are now on the reissues of the Beggars Banquet studio albums. Also, some of these songs ("Haf Found Bormann," "Acid Priest 2088", part of "Twister", for example) are crap. Still, I guess it's good to have all the songs in one set, and most of them still would be better than anything by most bands anyway.

express1@inwind.it
The B-sides are better than the A-side(Untitled,God-Box,and Twister over all the rests!)

Extricate - Cog Sinister/Fontana/Polygram 1990.

Post-Brix. Several of these songs seem to be about her. They're not terribly flattering, either. For some reason, original guitarist Martin Bramah returned for this album, and he looks like a big sissy. He doesn't seem to be playing much, either. Still, some good songs - "Sing! Harpy" is essentially a rip-off of the Stooges's "Little Doll," but it's got a cool violin going all the way through it; "I'm Frank" doesn't sound like any Frank Zappa I've ever heard, but it's catchy in its sheer stupidity; "Black Monk Theme Part 1" appears to be a stuttering attack on Brix, but it's apparently a cover!; "And Therein" is terrific rockabilly; "Hilary" is a clever take on one of the oldest riffs in the world; and both "Telephone Thing" (which kinda sucks) and the title track (which is hilarious but for some reason was left off of the vinyl version) experiment with dance music. Some of the other songs blow, but all in all, it's really good. And no "dang dang dang" guitar for a damn change.

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
Right up there in the Holy Trinity of LP's that Changed the Way We Listened to The Fall, with Hex Enduction Hour and Wonderful & Frightening..... A massive, massive breakthrough, grasping all sorts of new ways to sound. "Telephone Thing" is brilliant. "Popcorn Double Feature" is a fickin' SEARCHERS cover for God sake! Mark E is a genius for recording stuff like that, I heard the original version for the first time recently and it even SOUNDS like the Fall! After this, nothing came close except Middle Class Revolt.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
This record mostly blows. It took several years from here for the Fall to adequately merge their garage sensibility with "modern" dance-oriented production techniques. Only thing great on here is "Sing Harpy". Again, I think you're unfair to Brix. Supposedly Marc had been through ANOTHER marriage already and these songs were more about the other woman. I think Brix is the ultimate Fall guitar player - she did some great stuff.

jay@ndi.net
I picked The Fall's Extricate out of used bin for a small sum of money, and I think it was definitely worth it. Not sure how i'd rate it, but I have a big problem with it, and if you own this record you might know what i'm talking about...

During the song "Chicago Now" which is kind of drawn out, there's this guitar part where you think they're gonna start rockin' but no rockin' occurs.

It reminds me of the opening to some Pixiesesque rockin' except they don't follow through.

Every time this part in the song comes up I get all giddy like a schoolgirl because some rockin' is going to take place and every time I get let down. It's just not fair. Damn you Mark E. Smith, damn you to hell.

Backdrop - Pseudo Indie Label 1994.

Reader Comments

paulsaxton@mailcity.com
"Dresden Dolls" appeared here in the UK on a bootleg 7" around 1987, backed with "front parlour" demos of "Psycho Mafia" and "Industrial Estate" from early 77. It's a lovely little item, not least because it demonstrates how The Fall hadn't quite found their feet. They sound more traditionally 'punk' (UK punk that is) here than they ever sounded. "Dresden Dolls" is a sludgy number with MES' Nazi fixation to the fore - although without the style and wit of later numbers. Here it's almost as if he's emulating the whole swastika shock tactic thing that was lovingly embraced by certain misguided punks at the time - Sid in particular. The record is on Total Eclipse (DRD1) and comes complete with crappy glossy photocopied cover - Smith on the back (from about 86) with titles along the side. The front cover has the bold legend: THE FALL. I've only ever seen one copy of this record - and that's mine. Your Fall review section is great although I disagree with you on a number of points. You're wrong about The Wonderful and Frightening... particularly as it contains one of their best pop numbers - "Stephen Song" - up there with "Ludd Gang" in my opinion. I think, like many Americans I've met, that you're too hung up on this 'rock' thing. Why you choose to review the likes of Aerosmith, Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica and the risible Ministry is beyond me. Why not have a go at Wire, Cabaret Voltaire or Stereolab? I know that Americans like their 'rock'... but thank god for the British invasions over the past forty years - and I don't mean Oasis. Oh, you're also way off the mark with the Velvet Underground. Despite all that, keep up the good work.

The Dredger EP ep - Phonogram 1990.

Shiftwork - Cog Sinister/Fontana/Phonogram 1991.

I've grown to like this album a whole lot. I think it's more cohesive than Extricate, and a very interesting way to handle the post-Brix crisis. Unfortunately, it was never released in the U.S., so if you find it, it'll cost you about 20 dollars. Unless you live in England, of course, in which case, you can go to Hell, ya damn Mexican.

Reader Comments

mholland@source1consultants.com (Matt Holland)
That has to be THE most popular Fall album in the second-hand bins up here in Canada. I picked it up for about $8 (about 5 U.S. bucks!). I have yet to embrace it the way you have, the way I've embraced so many of their other albums: This Nation's Saving Grace; Code: Selfish; The Infotainment Scan; Levitate...

brendanleahy@eircom.net
One of the best Fall albums, hailing the beginning of a new chapter. Edinburgh Man is one of the best Fall tracks ever.

express1@inwind.it
this is one of the worst Fall record i've heard!Maybe..The Mixer is a good do-it-yourself-tune.. but not much.

Code: Selfish - Cog Sinister/Fontana/Phonogram 1992.

Reader Comments

JKANDELL@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU (Jonathan Kandell)
I can't believe you don't think "Free Range" isn't terrific! An ode to Nietzsche, criticism of the fighting in Easter Europe after the Wall fell. "In 2001, life-code: it pays to talk to no one. "Also Sprach Zarathustra", reference to Straus's opera based on Nietzsche's book, and the movie that used Strass as its theme. "Europa, every second third word: Europa." A true classic.

mootje@total.net
I think Mr. Kendall should stop masturbating so much.

GBougops@aol.com
"Crew Filth", "Two-Face", and "So-Called Dangerous" are very weak filler, but this has plenty of great material. "Free Range" and "Return" are classics, "Married, 2 Kids" is a catchy little number, and "Gentlemen's Agreement" is almost "mature" sounding, especially for the Fall. Well, maybe not. A 7.

Ed's Babe EP - Phonogram 1992.

Kimble ep - Strange Fruit 1993.

Reader Comments

spleen@valise.com (GrahamC)
"Kimble" is the finest cover they've done. The band's skewed take on reggae is nothing short of joyous. Mark comes on like some sort of Jamaican gangster and slurs the classic line 'I wear very good shoes'. He also performs some very amusing vocal effects and sounds utterly barking. Cutlery can be heard in the background and plinky keyboards of the highest order. It should have been a massive hit - in Fall terms about number 35 - but Strange Fruit weren't bothered about selling many records and the inferior "Grudgeful," another reggae-cover and distant cousin of "Kimble," was released at the same time on a major label.

The B side of the 7" "Kimble" features one of their greatest speed-rants, a Peel session version of "CnCs Mithering" retitled "CnC Hassle Schmuk" containing the golden Fall moment: 'Oh dear friends I can't go on, Arthur Askey's just been shot. We must do a tribute!' For US-based f-faces, Arthur Askey was an irritating geriatric English comedian rumoured to have once slagged The Fall.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
I too think "Kimble" is brilliant and a must-own track. It's a Lee "Scratch" Perry track by the way, and as far as that goes ... I say if you haven't heard much Scratch yet, you're missing out on one of the finer things in life. The Fall definitely get into the tune, it's a brilliant cold hard groove.

The Infotainment Scan - Matador/Atlantic 1993.

Reader Comments

aangen@visi.com (Al Angen)
My goodness, this one slipped past you I'm guessing. To quote Todd Rundgren, "Get your headphones on and get 'em cranked up, cause they're really going to help you on this one" Try again, Infotainment is the highpoint of the 90's for the Fall.

daveabe@scott.net
Not the best Fall album I've listened to, but I was never that keen on techno dance music. I personally like "Ladybird" (very tuneful), "I'm going to Spain" (strange "poppy" song), "It's a curse" (typical fall music), "Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room" (great lyrics), "League of Bald-Headed Men". I agree with your judgement, allthough I would knock it down to 6 out of 10.

mpenn@mss-inc.com
Have to take issue with you about the Infotainment Scan. Terrific record! I found it cheap and bought it on impulse--I've always been a big fan of the group but hadn't really heard much new material since Oranj. This kicks--and I enjoyed it so much I'm dragging old copies of Hex Enduction and Early Years out for the first time in a while. The covers are really catchy and "It's A Curse" is one of the most bilious and on target rants I've heard in a while. The band sounds muscular and tight with just enough weirdness to keep your ears alert. Oh, well, that's what makes horse races...

mholland@source1consultants.com (Matt Holland)
"It's A Curse" has got to be one of the most hilarious, acidic Fall songs ever. It alone would serve as "comeback" if the other tracks weren't so engaging as well.

McFarland@ac-tech.com
"Ladybird" is a good pop tune, one of their better efforts really. I can't stand most of the rest of this. What good tunes there are on here mostly sound better on The 27 Points.

sscwon@bellatlantic.net (Todd Jones)
"Paranoia Man In Cheap Sh*t Room" is one of the coolest songs ever!

GBougops@aol.com
This has to be one of the most accessible Fall albums in their catalog, and it is pretty good. "Service" is weird sounding, particularly for the Fall, but great. "It's A Curse" and "Paranoid Man in Cheap Shit Room" are typical classic Fall, and the cover of "I'm Going to Spain" (don't know who did the original) is a nice change of pace. Still, "A Past Gone Mad" is inferior; the version entitled "Passable" on 27 Points is much better. An 8.

Crash Course '84 - '92 - Matador 1993.

Behind The Counter ep - Matador 1994.

Middle Class Revolt (aka The Vapourisation Of Reality) - Matador 1994.

Man, I dig the word "soundscapes." A fella named Bob Boster introduced me to the word. Good man, that Bob Boster. If you see him, shake his hand. But don't offer him an umbrella!! Cuz he don't use 'em!!!

As the album continues, "M5#1" and "Surmount All Obstacles" bury their melodies almost completely under computer noise (but ooo! what melodies they are!). Then the title track sounds like The Cars back when they were good, which wasn't that long ago. And there are other songs too, but why ruminate? "Hey! Student" is really punky (in a clean, non-threatening, Green Day-kinda way) and there are three fairly unnecessary covers, but I've always been one to bitch about covers. I like NEW songs, dammit! I don't wanna hear some band do some old band's crappy songs!!! New! Move forward!! Fortunately, I've never heard the originals of these three covers, so they still interest me. On a related note, if you wanna hear The Fall totally butcher The Beatles's "A Day In The Life," look for the Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father compilation. Mark does his best to turn it into a Fall song (adding "-ah" to the end of every line, changing "grabbed my hat" to "grabbed my stash," shouting "FALL!" right before the classic piano chord at the end), but...uh...he fails miserably. Let's move on.

Oh! Incidentally, I interviewed Mark Smith shortly after the release of this album (big important journalist that I am), and I got him to admit that Black Sabbath was one of his favorite bands when he was about 14! So if he ever gets a little too pretentious for you, just remember: At one point, he was a dumbass headbanging little British Beavis. Oh, the little ironies life presents. Like Blues Traveller. The hell is that shit?

Reader Comments

corpsebag@hotmail.com (Michael Cory)
How can you write a better song than "Hey Student"?

dan@nexnix.co.uk (Dan Westoby)
Not too sure about most of the album, but I still wait for the day when I find a club good enough to play "City Dweller" at intense volume...

mholland@source1consultants.com (Matt Holland)
When Middle Class Revolt came out, one review read, "Mark E Smith seems to think that where their sound is at in 1994 comes from The Cure's sound in 1985." Or some such paraphrase.

waco@primenet.com
my two preferred fall periods are Slates/Hex/Room and the immediate past (Middle/Code/Infotainment) - I think in a million years or even after a couple the mid-90s stuff'll tower over the late 80s hits.

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
On this release, The Fall manipulate the very good Henry Cow song "War" into something virtually unlistenable and turn the formerly unlistenable garage-friendly anthem "Shut Up" into something more. The original material is similar in the black/white mode of the cover versions; there is some truly awful work on here ("Hey! Student", "Symbol Of Mordgan") directly alongside some absolutely great work ("The Reckoning", "You're Not Up To Much"). And then there's the by-the-numbers, occasionally good evolved-Fall numbers like "M5#1" and "Surmount All Obstacles" that, if anything, ground the release. A good thing when the unimpressive "Junk Man" and the boring "Behind The Counter" destroy any chances of this being a great release. In reality, about 50% of this release isn't good at all. Stick with the later release Levitate; that's worlds better than this processed excuse for material.

s_gillespie@rkadv.com
Are you on crack? This is an all time low for the Fall. Clearly, you don't measure the Fall by standards of formal perfection, but you do expect at least three or four good songs on the mediocre albums (Curious Orange, Shiftwork, Code: Selfish). These guys are obviously very, very tired and in need of new jobs, except for Mark, who probably just needs new band members to terrorize. Which he got, to good effect.

GBougops@aol.com
an even better album; the keyboards are put in the back, bringing Scanlon up where he belongs. "15 Ways", "Middle Class Revolt", "Hey! Student",and "$500 Bottle of Wine" are the top ones here, but there's plenty other great material on this. 3 interesting covers too. A 9.

Cerebral Caustic - Permanent Records 1995.

Crap, this is a good album. The drum sound could not be fresher, louder, crispier - I guess that's what happens when you have two drummers, unless of course you're the Grateful Dead, in which case you just don't write any good songs. An absolutely fun listen - like a seesaw with an adorable picture of Mark wearing angel wings. I'd give it a 9, but the melodies, as a whole, aren't quite as creative and hypnotic as those on Middle Class Revolt. Still, it's awfully exciting to be surprised by a new Fall album! This is the first time in their career that they've made a full-tilt stylistic change this quickly, but it's wonderful! Not like REM and U2 trying to prove they're young hip old bags by putting on stupid sunglasses and playing overproduced generic 90's tripe, but a very talented band who were in the mood to make a different kind of album. A very creative 17th studio album. Look at that number. 17. The Fall have made 17 great studio albums. Oasis have made 0. That's all I'm saying.

Reader Comments

mfsx5bjg@stud.man.ac.uk
Although scratchy garage-feel and lo-fi inbetweeners were partially refeshing after the tighter production of the previous few; I feel this album suffers for the basic unadventurousness of both melodic and lyrical quality. "The Aphid" is the "The Joke" re-recorded for instance. And the usual delight of Smith`s bitchy thought conceits is reduced to uninspired moaning about stocks and docs.

s_gillespie@rkadv.com
After about 500 listens, I've decided that "Bonkers in Phoenix" is up there in my all time five favorite fall songs. And it doesn't even sound like any other fall song, except for maybe "Hotel Bloedel" which is structurally resembles in its dialectical Mark/Brix dialogue/contrast. While Mark obviously has much left to say, it's pretty clear that he is a bit of a tired/old man, and the helium-induced lightness of Brix's vocals on this track serves as the perfect foil for his weary grumbling. And of course, this is complimented by the disparity of the two lyrical registers: on one hand, a transcendental realm of unspecified "shiny things" which remain inaccessible to monetary exchange, and a more familiar world of the everyday banalities of life in Phoenix Arizona, on the other. In some ways, then, this song is a consistent with the metaphysical pursuits of songs like "Immortality" and "Levitate". I haven't even mentioned that annoying white noise stuff which simultaneously serve to break up yet unify Mark and Brix in a musical relationship. This song is pure gold.

The Twenty-Seven Points - Permanent Records 1995.

The second time I saw them was in our nation's capitol on the Middle Class Revolt tour. I was thrilled to see Karl Burns serving as "second drummer," but Mark looked just as bored and drunk as before, and angry, too! The keyboard kept getting cut out of the mix, so Mark thrice left the stage in bitter British protest. In fact, the band had to play a few of the hits sans-vox (with Karl playing a cassette tape of Mark's voice into the microphone) until their esteemed egomaniacal leader saw fit to return to the stage. And you know what? They sounded better without him! He was fuqtup and just kept mumbling into the mic and ruining the great songs that the band was trying to play.

My point? Don't buy this double-live album unless you're already a fan, because if this is your introduction to The Fall, you'll hate them. Fall fans will find it entertaining - lots of dumb jokes, bad poetry, and hilariously drunken renditions of what used to be songs (plus two great new songs - "A Cloud Of Black" and "Noel's Chemical Effluence") - but those unfamiliar with the band should definitely stay away from this wretched excuse for a musical product. I still gave it a 7, though. Yours is not to reason why.

Yours is just to grab my thigh!

Reader Comments

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
Miles better than Cerebral Caustic or Light User Syndrome, which it is sandwiched between. Doesn't even sound like the Fall live for the most part! Best 'Live' lp since A Part of America Therein.

twootton@thomtax.co.uk (Tom Totale)
The Twenty-Seven Points is under-represented by your review. "Return", "Ladybird", and "Idiot Joy" are superior to the recorded versions. "Big New Prinz" is a remarkable example of the powerhouse live version of this song that was performed at the time. Side 2 is perhaps somewhat scabrous and slapdash (endearingly so I think), but side 3 more than makes up for this with a stunning version of "Lost in Music". Side 4 is the best batch yet, with excellent versions of "A Past Gone Mad", "Middle Class Revolt", "War", "Strychnine", and the brilliant new "Noel's Chemical Effluence".

McFarland@ac-tech.com
I strongly disagree with you. I think this is a brilliant document of a brilliant band. I had "gotten off the boat" with The Fall for a while. To me their garage sensibilities weren't merging with their post-rock production techniques - we were getting the worst of both worlds. But I heard this and said "whoa"! Now it made sense to me. There's loads of great riffy material, about 100 minutes worth, and they keep swinging back and forth between the Brix-Burns augmented band with the big full sound and the more severe 4-piece sound from earlier tours. The contrast and the constant flow of interesting material, much of it superior to studio versions, combine to make this a heck of a document. I love it, I love it, I love it. 10 stars.

In The City... - Artful 1997.

But why "Edinburgh Man"? I just don't like that song very much at all.

Sinister Waltz - Receiver 1996.

I'll write about the other albums in a minute. Now I gotta go run in place for fifteen minutes.

As if in carefully-calculated imitation of our pointless, mindless day-to-day existence on this cold stupid planet.

Plus it keeps me skinny so chicks dig me.

Reader Comments

espoley@bu.edu (Eric Spoley)
If you liked Sinister Waltz, then GET the other 2 receiver discs... (Sinister Waltz was actually my least favorite!) Oswald Defense Lawyer is one of the better live things they've done (I think!) Anyways, that's my two cents!

chris.lemon@mailcity.com
Total shite. However, I must admit that I bought both this and Oswald Defence Lawyer * Fiend With a Violin, if just to put a few more pennies in Smith's pockets. He must need them if he's willing to let stuff like this slip out. Actually, I would like to know the full story behind these three offerings; no one is saying ANYTHING though. Why not? Hope some of this is constructive, although the danger with expressing your opinions is that you'll just end up saying no no NO. Again, your site is a decent one, thanks.

Oswald Defence Lawyer - Receiver 1996.

Fiend With A Violin - Receiver 1996.

Reader Comments

echo@huron.net
All three of the Receiver releases are absolute shit. All three are rehashed live or alternate takes of songs already released, invariably inferior. Nobody needs a demo version of the tracks from ShiftWork. The liner notes to Fiend with a Violin plugs the title track as "never before heard." What fucking bullshit. It's a demo of "2X4". Fall fans will buy them because we're all retarded, but avoid these if at all possible.

The Light User Syndrome - Jet 1996.

The stuff is still basically simple music, but the way that the bass and drums interact in minimalist trash rock like "D.I.Y. Meat" and "Das Vulture Ans Ein Nutter-Wain" is definitely worth noting. It's like the best of every possible Fall world - the exciting, noisy, anything-goes feel of Grotesque, the wonderful boy-girl vocal interplay of the A Sides singles, the dark undertones of Bend Sinister, and even that dancey Infotainment Scan groove - all shoved together to create a hip new sound that we, the hip alternative music fans of the world, have never heard before! Real exciting.

And it's clear that these guys have a future, too! They sound so excited and energetic playing these new numbers, it's incomprehensible to think that they're actually probably all pushing forty (In comparison, those "bad boys" Oasis sound like a bunch of tired old men!). In closing, I'll admit that I'd love to give The Light User Syndrome a 9, but it gets a little weaker near the end, with a hideous cover tune and some pretty uneventful mood pieces. Still, the first ten songs are amazing, and the drunken dipsy-doodle "Secession Man" closes the work on an appropriately hilarious note. Fifteen huzzahs to the world's most prolific and consistently impressive rock and roll band.

Oh yeah. Brix quit again during the tour for this album.

Reader Comments

chris@edi.paimail.com (Chris Kovin)
Mark E. Smith will no doubt hire Scanlon back now that Brix is gone. I wish he would get together again with Riley, but apparently those bridges have been burned irreparably. The Scanlon story from the Cog Sinister office was he was sacked for "shoddy appearance and failure to maintain amps." I'm not kidding. Unfortunately, MES failed to MAKE appearance several times!

Roboburger@aol.com (Curt)
wow. listed as "for true insomniacs" and they weren't kidding. i have just started searching on the web for fall stuff and yer site is amazing! keep up the good work. although you lose points for rating Infotainment lower than the nowhere-near-as-good Middle Class Revolt. i remember first hearing "Prole Art Threat" on WNUR in Chicago as a highschooler. i ran to the phone, called, let the fone ring about 30 times and when the "gee, i'm so bored" type of college dj finally answered i said "what was that last tune?" and he sounded like i was stupid for inquiring. "it was "Prole Art Threat" by the fall" he replied in his "ho hum yawn" tone. i've been a feverishly obsessive fan ever since. haven't picked up Light User tho.

jhughes@cablesoft.co.uk (Jason Hughes)
You never cease to amaze me. I'm still here working through my favourite bands from your very accurate list. I just don't know what you are going to say next after slagging off D Jr (legend), and then to my utter amazement, praising The Fall. At least there is hope for you. As you say still fairly unknown (not to my mates I must tell you, who have had The Fall played continuously to them for the last 8 years), but by far one of the all time greatest bands, of my era. FUCKING BRILLIANT LIVE.

jnight@lainet.com
Thanks for the great fall stuff.

I'd have to agree with you that bend sinister is about the poppiest (or at least catchiest) I've ever heard the fall. I don't see it as dark at all.

Similarly, I find Nation's Saving Grace as the most commercial-but-still-very-good albums.

I lost interest when they got dancey.

I set up a fall lyrics frame page @ http://www.lainet.com/~jnight

rchute@samschwartz.com
As much as I liked Code Selfish, and was really pleased to see that Justine F of Elastica listed it as one of her faves in Rolling Stone a year or so after it came out, I must say that the Light User Syndrome is the best record the Fall have put out in a very long time. It was a record that really excited me about the Fall all over again. Its depth and greatness was also unexpected after Cerebral Caustic, which sounded to me like they were working a day job. The cover even seemed as if they had picked the first photo the record company showed them. Light User on the other hand showed the Fall to be seeming to enjoy what they were doing again. The record works on so many levels. I'm particularly fond of the way the second and third songs set up "Hostile." It is a one-two punch like Fall records of old. A record store worker at Kim's Underground put it rightly when he called the record "unrelentless."

The sound is also more full, for lack of a better word. I think the understated keyboard work on the record really puts it over the top. It paints a background that really makes songs like "He Pep," "Hostile," and "the Coliseum" stand proudly in the company of their other best work.

The increasingly tiny ripples that new Fall records make in the U.S. marketplace make me sad, though. They haven't been over in too long a time either.

cmorley@concentric.net
Oh, I definitely give this record a 9.9! After Cerebral Caustic (which was good but those overdriven vocals are annoying as hell to listen to) I was a little apprehensive when getting Light user. Boy was I surprised! This is the best since Infotainment Scan! Track 14 (second to last?) has that gut wrenching drive that won't quit..... This record has more ball buster for the buck! anyway that's my take & love your site!

daveabe@scott.net
One of my favorite Fall albums & highly recommended. Why no mention of "He Pep"! in your initial review ? This is one of my all time 'faves' (although my wife could live without it).

BireneBee@aol.com
The Light-User Syndrome is the greatest album The Fall have ever made, objectively speaking, and while I agree that there are a couple of ropey songs on side two, what do you expect for a fifteen-tracker?! The band are as tight as Kula Shaker are slack and a perfect antidote to all the tenth-rate derivative wank that passes for "alternative music" anytime. "Cheetham Hill" is marvellous, dance around the room stuff, and how a relatively old group of grumpy gets can record something as furious and catchy as "D.I.Y. Meat" is a true puzzle. "Secession Man" is GREAT, laugh-out loud, life-affirming daft boppy music, and "The Chiselers" is another all-time great that can hold its own against anything they' ve done. Bloody hell fire, just LISTEN to it, and fast-forward from that "Last Exit to Brooklyn" bollocks, to the last track. Twenty years on, the Stones recorded "Start Me Up". That's a joke. We laugh with The Fall.

mholland@source1consultants.com (Matt Holland)
"Old White Train" -- Again, hilarious. Where's your sense of humour? I understand that you don't like covers but, hey, it's The Fall. "Mr. Birdy is...Scruffed Up! Oh Yeah!"

McFarland@ac-tech.com
This is, basically, one hell of an album. Shockingly good and relevant. It might be their best to this point, in all honesty. If you used to like them, you ought to give this a chance. "Spinetrack" and "DIY Meat" are penultimate Fall. "Cheatham Hill" sounds just like older Wire, it's a nice one. The cover of Johnny Paycheck's "Old White Train" is strong and wonderful. And darned near all the other songs on here are great too! 2 out of 15 don't move me. There's so much good stuff on here, and it really is different than anything else out there ... The Fall made it into the 90's ... and made some great records (27 Points, this, & the next one, Levitate). Three cheers and ten stars.

Oxymoron - Receiver 1997.

Jockstrap? Hell! Pile of dog poop on my arm!

Reader Comments

defab4@earthlink.net (Mike DeFabio)
I haven't heard this, but you're darn right about this whole Receiver thing. What's with them? And why are the REAL Fall albums so hard to find? You wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get a copy of Hex Enduction Hour! I'm saving that story for HEH itself, though I still don't know if it's coming. BOYCOTT BORDERS. Okay, it was my fault I didn't like that one Kraftwerk album, but boycott Borders anyway. And dangit, boycott Receiver too! And CDNow for not having HEH in stock. Amazon too, yeah.

Cheetham Hill - Receiver 1996.

Levitate - Artful 1997.

Okay, about the record - how to describe? Well, it's... strange! Everything sounds incomplete; the songs seem to be more like collections of drumbeats and sketchy half-riffs than actual fully-developed melodies. At first, it sounded to me like the band was just half-assing it, but then I paid a bit closer attention and now I think I've figured out the situation. See, there's one simple phrase printed on the back cover that I believe makes it crystal clear why this record is so bizarre - "Produced by Mark E. Smith."

Need I really write more, need I? I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive that this is the first time ever that Mark has produced a Fall record on his own, without a real producer standing by to say, "Umm, Mark? You can't DO that...." As such, the whole damn thing sounds like "Paintwork" - the "songs" will alternately be just a muffled keyboard noise with a funky beat, or a fuzzed-out bass with Mark talking over it, or a pretty little electric piano line with nothing behind it, or.... Oh, why go on? WHY??? My point here is that, even though these songs sound like incomplete constructions, I'd bet probably half a dollar that these ditties actually WERE at one time complete songs, but Mark purposely screwed everything up in post-production. I can just see the rest of the band (especially the two new guitarists, whose input seems to have been nearly entirely deleted from the final mix) sitting down and listening to the final product with these huge furrows in their brow as they nudge each other and ask, "It didn't sound like that when we PLAYED it, did it? I thought I remembered there being a melody in that song!"

Okay, then, anyway, I still haven't described the music too well, so I'll try - it's very drum-and-keyboard dependent. Very dancey, but not at all in that slick Infotainment Scan way. This is sort of like organic electronica, with bass fuzz, Mark's shouting, and assorted guitar planking and tinkly keyboard noises layered all atop Simon and Karl's typically topnotch trappin', hank. Some of the bits sound like rockabilly (when the guitar shows up), but the overall mood is really one of noisy and almost industrial-sounding (though it's clearly man-made, which adds a good deal of warmth to the proceedings) dance music. It makes ME dance anyway! Forget U2's Pop. Hell, for all I care, forget the Chemical Brothers and all that other Spin magazine stuff. THIS is the sound of modern innovative dance music. Dissonant, minimalist, juvenile, interesting, rockin', and FUN! I personally find the songs really catchy too, but I'll leave that up to you. Go Fall Go! Mark's still keeping the dream alive. Levitate is a great album.

Reader Comments

paulsaxton@mailcity.com
The Fall's best album in a long time.

echo@huron.net (Sandy)
Just as an afterthought, a note on all these Receiver releases. I'm not against remixes/lost tracks/outtakes/live versions, but they are just not original songs. When I can't find a fucking copy of Dragnet, Palace of Swords Reversed, Live at the Witch Trials or some single without literally leaving the country, I DON'T need five different versions of "Edinburgh Man" no matter how good the song might be.

Oh, and now there's another two-CD comp. called The Less You Look The More You Find which is another rip off. However, the liner notes are absolutely great.

kek@global-sas.co.uk
Did any UK Fall-watchers see that bloody awful pop program with Zoe Ball (a sort of Nineties Juke Box Jury) - Marc Riley was a guest. (No, I don't know why I was watching it either...) In an attempt to embarass Riley on prime time TV they showed a 20 second clip of him playing with the Fall (circa 1980, I think...) in New York. I think they played "Elastic Man", but my memory is not to be trusted, so feel free to correct me...

Riley looked suitably unimpressed/disinterested by the whole thing, tho' I think Zoe Ball made some comment that she thought it was cool that he'd been in The Fall. People in the US who are wondering what the hell I'm on about might not be aware that Marc Riley is now a nationally-known daytime radio-DJ over here. Presumably, someone at the BBC thought it was hilarious to reveal his humble punk-rock beginnings. Yeah, right....

I saw Marc Riley and The Creepers supporting Frank Sidebottom back in the Eighties. Actually, they weren't bad in a fake Rockabilly/quasi-Fall kinda way...

bel@mcmail.com (Danny, Salford)
Levitate is the best Fall LP since Nations Saving Grace, It's the biggest step forward they have made in ages, "Hurricane Edward" is like nothing they've ever done and has inspired me.

I saw Zoe Ball she one of the Live n Kicking presenters said something like "Wow! That was really bad" and then 20 minutes later praising shitty tenager bands like Backstreet Boys eugh!!!

They were top at Sankeys by the way.

gladbag@mailcity.com (Paul Saxton)
The Marc Riley/Live 'n' Kicking clip was The Fall performing "Totally Wired" in New York. The whole thing can be seen on the wondrous Perverted By Language/Bis video.

miser17@epix.net (Michael Davies)
your Fall review site is missing not only those two live albums echo@huron.net was talking about but also the Hip Priest and Kamerads compilation, which is a compilation of their stuff for the Kamera label (Hex Enduction Hour, Room To Live, and two singles). there's 4 songs from Hex, 2 from RTL, and both sides of the "Look Know"/"I'm Into CB" and "Lie Dream Of A Casino Soul"/"Fantastic Life" singles. "Lie Dream" is on the reissue of RTL, but i don't think "Look Know" or "I'm Into CB" are on any other albums.

i also don't understand all these live albums when Dragnet, Room To Live, Slates EP, Early Years, Palace Of Swords Reversed are all impossible to find anywhere. i've found a bunch of distributors selling Live At The Witch Trials but not Dragnet, which is odd since they were originally released on the same label in the same year. they're even reissuing the live albums (Fall In A Hole, Legendary Chaos Tape). it's probably easier to find all the singles on Palace Of Swords Reversed than to find a copy of the album.

mholland@source1consultants.com (Matt Holland)
"4 1/2 Inch" is the most brilliant, chaotic, powerful, disturbed and (I think) accomplished Fall song I've ever heard. I get such a tremendous rush of dis-ease whenever I hear it that I think MES has finally summed up his fantastic, uncomfortable, awful raison d'etre in 3 minutes and 56 seconds. I want the whole world to hear it and misunderstand...

There are days when I simply can't get the "I'm A Mummy" riff out of my head, and I don't even try.

Too bad about all the domestic troubles, or is it?

RobertG@foxinc.com (Robert Green)
The bonus CD is so good that you must immediately buy it, even if you already own Levitate. Christmastime alone is worth the price, a brilliant song, amazing rhythms floating through the ether, etc. And the Masquerade singles are great--not only is this a great song, but the b-sides are classic. The Fall are the most consistent band in R'n'R history--I defy you to name one other band whose catalogue can be dipped into without regard for time period, line-up, etc. and nuggets of genius will result. Bowie used to be this way, maybe, but that was 18 years ago. All who are ignorant should become norant...

mootje@total.net
I like this album much more than my friends...but perhaps it's also due to the fact that this freekn' album isn't available in Canada (thank god for cdnow.com) and they have to borrow it from me. However, there's no comparison between the album version of Masquerade and the cd single...the single just kicks right royal ass. Pick it up if you don't have it.

kme@deskmail.com (Kevin E.)
The sheer ire-inspiring pettiness of including the melody to "i come and stand at your door" twice in two distinct tracks is almost enough to reduce this release to the ranks of near misses. Every other song completely overshadows both "i come and stand at your door" and "jap kid"; "ten houses of eve" alone makes this entire effort a seminal example of late 90s dance music. All of this offers firm support of the "quality" argument; Levitate is as disturbingly original as Live At The Witch Trials and Hex Enduction Hour.

This is landmark material for another fine reason: The Fall have not released a truly album-oriented set of songs in well over ten years. The ambition of this project takes this statement into consideration and is further reinforced by the absolute fact that the pure lyricism of "everybody but myself" closes the record in two formats. Although this material may not be as easily digested as This Nation's Saving Grace or The Frenz Experiment it is superior to them both because Levitate represents an incarnation of The Fall that is unsatisfied with stagnating in a particular style.

The Marshall Suite - Artful 1999.

And boy if you ever had any worries that Mark E. wasn't COMPLETELY responsible for the sound of The Fall, one listen will quell your fears. Aside from a couple of moments of ugly wah-wah and perhaps a wee bit less in the way of enormously memorable bass lines, this band sounds exactly like the last one! (and the one before that, and so on and so on).

Don't be fooled by the beginning. They start with two simplistic catchy little rockabilly tunes, but then go straight to the weird house-trance-dance poetry-noise drum-bass stuff you loved so much on Levitate. Granted, it's not quite as exciting and novel the second time around (which is the main reason this one only gets an 8 instead of a 9, although the presence of a couple throwaway experimental thingies doesn't help), but there are still some killer, killer tunes on here that you'll have stuck in your head for a long time. "The Crying Marshal," in fact, may be the most accomplished, mesmerizing and pounding dance tune they've ever done -- it rivals Meat Beat Manifesto in the headbanging department of youth!

I read somewhere that the album is a sort of rock opera, but I don't quite hear that (I also don't have a lyrics sheet). What I do hear is the ever-evolving Fall in the midst of their latest phase, still crankin' out repetitive catchy, weirdly-produced, fuzzed-out, awesomely-rhythmed music for the kids. Most consistent band of all time? If you ask me, fuck yeah.

However, I must express my disappointment in the band for not coming up with an incredibly memorable set of melodies this time around. But hey, it's been a crazy couple of years.

Reader Comments

chand@ollamh.ucd.ie (Collette Hand)
Touch Sensitive is ace..I know..I know..I know..'they say what about the meek/I say they've got a bloody cheek'. I love that line. Foldin' Money is C'mon Everybody but this perfect day is stumbling exhausted singing(?) against a tight driving sound which works so well as they work against each other. He comes across so struggingly indifferent. Bound is catchy and poppy (it's length makes it have such a great impact and seperates it from a dtandard pop tune and a great Fall track - Fall fans will stick to it) Shake Off is great as is On My Own. This LP is much lighter than Levitate and a joy. Mark E Smith is the coolest f**ker on the planet and no-one comes close to THE FALL. Imagine the world without Mark E. Smith. I mean depressing or what.

maradona@thethreshold.com (Robert Green)
Fianally got a new car, 31 years into life, and devirginized its fine sound system (cars really are just wrappers for stereos, as far as I'm concerned) with Marshall Suite. It kills. This record is incredible. Please let them tour America with MES in a good mood, please....

sscwon@bellatlantic.net (Todd E. Jones)
I think the Marshall Suite is an amazing record. It's odd yet sometimes catchy and sometimes experimental.. It has something for everybody yet it maintains the fall's vibe. Songs like "On My Own", "The Crying Marshall", "F'-Oldin' Money", and "Birthday" are amazing.. The last song on the first (out of the 3 sides) is brilliant!! I like it as much as Levitate maybe even more because the experimental stuff is not as annoying or as long... This is a wonderful comeback from the pits of jail and legal sorrows for Mr. Smith...I think this is the antidote for the crap music out there...

johncoan@hotmail.com
Folks, folks, folks.....let's not get TOO carried away here now! It just seems to me that Fall obsessives (and I'd count myself among them), were so relieved with the unexpectedly above-average quality of this L.P. after the disastrous year M.E.S. had just completed, that they were prepared to pay it WAY higher praise than it deserves.....in truth, it's actually pretty weak by Fall standards. The last song on it is the same as the last song on the last bloody album! And that Mad Dog thing sounds like Mark's grunting, recorded after landing home from the pub...this is self-indulgent, pretentious nonsense. It's a very short album too, and if this is the best that the BEST group of all time can muster after a year and a half's sabbatical, it doesn't bode well at all.

Paul.Jenkins1@ntl.com
The Fall are the most astonishing visceral sheer obstroperous unpretentious whitenoiserockabillytechno ensemble on the planet. Though nothing since 1995 has been any good by their standards it still kicks ass by anybody else's. And even then we've had "The Joke","Das Vulture..","Inch" etc - these would be greatest hits on a K-Tel album if the world worked differently, but hey kids it doesnt....

MES is a genius and he once took me backstage after a gig and got me ratarsed on god knows what. My son is 8 and his 3 favourite fall songs are

1: I'm a Mummy
2: Hey! Student
3: Touch Sensitive (dance mix)

Mine however are (today, at any rate)

1: Mere Pseud Mag Ed
2: Container Drivers
3: Van Plague.

mootje@total.net (Matt Cahill)
This album is good, but only in the sense that it's an improvement on Levitate. I know I'm taking exception with Mark (Pringle, that is), but this is by comparison more of a balanced and concentrated effort than the last one. In fact, The Marshall Suite probably has more in common with Curious Oranj than any other Fall release.

That said, I don't particularly like this direction The Fall are taking (not that what I think influences anything). All I'm hearing in both Marshall and Levitate is an awkward dependency on production "wizardry"and l ess on the quality of the songs themselves. This was Levitate's biggest problem...the feeling that I was sitting in a recording studio at 3:30am while three stoned guys fiddled with knobs.

Hearing Touch Sensitive and Foldin' Money made me long for things like hooks, kineticism, and ... well, clarity. By that I don't mean to say "your songs don't make sense", but rather "your songs are beginning to drown in their own production-heavy, synthetic club-scene gimmicry".

Still, long live The Fall...in whatever form. That, or at least let's pray for the death of Phil Collins.

The Post-Nearly Man - Artful 1999.

Oh alright goddammit. This is Mark just saying stuff that doesn't make any sense. Some other voices pop in every once in a while and there are a couple of bouncy little keyboard passages. Maybe I'd like it if I was British. If I could eat Blood Pie and watch shit like Absolutely Fabulous, maybe I could even find some ounce of excitement in this awful, awful prose/poetry slackjack.

Reader Comments

tom@beadles.demon.co.uk
The Post Nearly Man is unutterably good. Spokane word poo-etry is always execrable. This album, however, is sublime.

The Unutterable - Cog Sinister/Eagle 2000.

Well fuck that - I can't remember when Rich Bunnell's deadline is for getting new reviews in, and I want to make sure that this review makes it on the page in the next couple of days, so I'm writing my lousy review after only one listen. One listen that was alternately exciting, depressing, exhilerating, boring, mindblowing, pathetic, hilarious and shitty.

See, the problem with Mark E. Smith (aside from the various drug addictions and uncontrollable misanthropy) is that he's EXTREMELY self-indulgent. Usually this works to the band's (and fan's) advantage because Mark enjoys good music (high-NRG techno, catchy guitar rock and good old '60s style garage rock) - HOWEVER, he also fancies himself an avant-garde experimentalist and poet. When he COMBINES these two urges, wonderful things happen. You dance around the room, bang your head and reel with wonder at the brilliant mass of weird noises hitting you in the brain (check out Levitate for the best example of this). However, when he separates these two facets to his self-love, you either get straightahead catchy music (Frenz Experiment, Shiftwork -- you know, all those Fall albums that the whole world hates except me) or irritating, seemingly pointless shitnoise and word poop (which is why his solo album The Post-Nearly Man doesn't get a whole lot of listens roundabouts my homestead).

Which brings us to The Unutterable. Most of the record is fucking fantastic -- exactly what I mentioned in the last paragraph -- catchy, simple, little '60s garage-pop influenced riffs smashed right on top of modern electronica-ish dance beats (i know "electronica" isn't the right word, but I don't know enough about the genre to tell you by name what it is -- "jungle"? "drum and bass"? "ragtime"?) with Nader-style ("liberal"! Get it??? FUCK YOU!!!!) amounts of ugly, indescribably tuneless synth noise wafting to and fro between the speakers. That's the good side!

The bad side is that, just like on The Light User Syndrome, it seems like 3/4 of the way into the record, Mark just started fucking around, with no thought as to how the results might sound. "Octo Realm" and "Unutterable" are that lo-fi poetry crap he's prone to subject his fans to, but that's okay because those tracks are SHORT. The real problem arrives with the last three tracks, which effectively leave a really, really, REALLY awful taste in my mouth every time I listen to it (all ONE time so far!). The first of these three tracks, "Midwatch 1953," is really interesting in theory -- it appears to be three different songs played at the same time; you can choose to listen to whichever melody you want. Neat idea? Yes, it really is! For about three minutes! Then it keeps going! For another three minutes! Then there's "Devolute," which is a 5-minute bunch of echoey synth noises with Mark spouting off two different speakerfulls of shit with no real start or finish that I can see. And finally "Das Katerer." Which is "Free Range" with different lyrics.

I realize that sounded negative -- but honestly eleven of the first twelve tracks are fantastic!!! And, like I said, "Midwatch 1953" starts cool as hell - it just drags on way too long.

About the rest of the album, a bit more I should say. Great energy. Really neat synth noises and terrific variations on the guitar styles -- much more than you might have heard from Mr. Scanlon or Ms. Brix. This dude alternates between 60s Count Five-style garage rock, 70s Dead Boys-style punk rock, 50s/70s Crampsish rockabilly, 80s Sonic Youth-style repetition and even twangy Johnny Cashish country-western hoobajoob and Johnny Hashish moody harmonics in the same song! (check out "Dr. Bucks' Letter" - nice, huh? You expect to see cowboys sitting around a fire shooting peyote mescaline into their veins, don't you?).

Final conclusion -- I really like the album, but I'd downright LOVE it if Mark would stick to bringing us all that great music in his head, instead of shitting out his worst indulgences onto tape and making us sit through it (well, he doesn't physically come to our house and hold a brass knuckle to our head -- but he should!), as if it deserved to be part of the same CD that contains such instant classics as "Cyber Insekt," "Way Round" and the fucking HILARIOUS "Pumpkin Soup and Mashed Potatoes". 8.

Reader Comments

geoff@main4.net (Geoff Oval)
This is the culmination of 20 odd years and 30 odd albums and I'm a 16 year old snot nosed git again. Smith has been shuffling up to this opus since the '77 s***pile - raw, fast n loud and straight from the garage, just the way they should be. Nobody will come close to releasing anything like this, this year (Fall cliche number 206) although the influences are many - standard Smith stuff, but is that Blur I hear or is it The Fall sounding like Blur trying to be The Fall? 'Hands Up Billy' is the next great Fall football terrace anthem to rival Mr. Pharmacist/Glam Racket and check out Sons of Temperance for the ideal 'punk by numbers' template (Notebooks out - Fall cliche 245 - Offspring, Green Day and other Yankie twenty years too late bands). Smith is doggedly pursueing his intended course of 'voice as instrument' and this album is probably the definitive article so far. This detracts if you actually bother to listen to the lyrics but enhances the whole white noise effect. The Fall were never about the lyrics, errr.....this is near damn heresy in Fallintellectualcircles (sic), they are and always will be the supreme garage band. Other raves, so far, are Serum and Hot Runes.........ahhh this band it doesn't get any better. My favourite Fall album? Always the last! Why bother comparing? Damn twelve months to wait for the next one.

barry@ole.ie
My first listen gave me many of the same feelings you had, but (as I'm sure you already have) listen to the damn thing again and you're fucked. It isn't leaving your head any time soon. I've finally reached the stage where I expect the next Fall album to be excellent rather than preparing for the worst. Re-write the review and give it a 9 you stingey get.

I'm going to Edinburgh for the Fall gig on 25 November 2000 because the bastard hasn't been to Dublin since '97.

rog@EZFlix.com (Rob Green)
t’s boring, really, how good each album is, and then I have to deal with the fact that a) I will never hear anything from it on the mainstream radio, b) none of my friends care, despite my efforts, and c) I live in LA so good luck to my seeing this stuff performed live anytime soon.

This is another amazing piece of work by the way, run don’t walk to buy it now--it’s brilliant guitars lyrics rhythms reminds me a bit of Debaser by the Pixies but not exactly…

Pepik.Silacek@seznam.cz (Josef)
After catching them on the recent tour and re-listening to the album this should be a 9. Listening to Fall records is a *learning* experience ya see. In 5 years time...

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