Something Completely Different

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Here's a fun idea. It is? Well, an idea anyway. Suggest to me a genre, or an artist, and I'll spend up to a month listening to them, reviewing their material and giving my opinion about them. The idea will be to listen to a minimum of two albums/mixtapes/whatever you're having yourself a day, which will mean that, if I manage this, I should in theory get through about 60 albums, which should be more than enough to gain a reasonable idea of what they're like, but at worst one album a day still gives me 30 albums. Some days I may listen to more if I can, but the average should be between 40 and 50, all going well. Obviously, if it's an artist you choose, then few have 60 albums, so I don't know what will happen there. As usual, it's all seat-of-the-pants, spur of the moment stuff, and may fall flat on its face, but we'll see.

Ideally, obviously, no genres or artists I'm familiar with, though hell, if you can come up with a prog or AOR or metal band or artist I don't know, then sure, why not? I guess the real aim is to look into genres, but we'll see what comes up.

To be fair, it will NOT be a case of first come first served. To give everyone a chance to get their suggestions in, I'll take those for the next, well, five days I guess, as I'll be kicking this off on December 1st. I'll then shuffle the suggestions up and pick one randomly. You can suggest one genre and up to three artists, though I will of course only be picking one. I will take recommendations, once the genre or artist is decided, but I will reserve the right to make up my own mind as to what I listen to.

Small caveats: no live albums/compilations/concert videos and so on. You know the kind of thing I prefer not to review. If the genre or artist picked is totally unknown to me, I may need help (what do you mean, you've known for a long time that I need help?) so will ask for your assistance.

As per usual, I will try to give everything a chance and make a fair and balanced investigation into whichever genre or artist the random gods have chosen for me, but also as usual, I won't be sucking up to anyone or worrying about hurting feelings: if I hate it, I'll say so. Ah, you know the deal. Sub-genres also acceptable (South Coast Hip-Hop/Celtic Punk/Neo-Prog/Nu-Metal etc), so let me know if that's what you're suggesting.

This isn't a chance to torture me. I've learned my lesson through bitter experience, so if something is just not clicking with me, say after a few days, a week, I will abandon it and open the floor to new suggestions. The aim is, though, to spend a month with the genre/artist if I can. That will only happen if I find them interesting, even in a macabre way (Horrorcore/DSBM etc) or if I genuinely feel I might end up liking the genre, or artist.

Anyway, off yiz go with yer suggestions. I'll pick one on or around Nov 30 and get going on December 1st.

Well uhh....Trolls....if you wanted a slightly more relaxed pace of about an album per day for a month...The Fall has 32 studio albums. And y'know....I think you'd actually dig them and appreciate them if you went through them chronologically and got to hear the evolution of their sound.  :)

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I'm sure there are several members here that would love to hear your blistering and humorous commentary on the wonderful (and often frightening) world of The Fall.  :laughing: I know I certainly would.

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Why did I not expect this?
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Quick! Someone post and give me more options before I'm forced to choose (shudder) The Fall!
What do you mean, I've made my bed and you can't type for shaking with laughter? I can't appeal to your mercy? How about cash then? I've got... let's see... six Euros and fifty-three cents. And a button. Can't say fairer than that now can I?
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As Mark E. Smith prophetically said in 'Fibre Book Troll':

QuoteYou must know, you must be able
To find a Facebook troll
(And when I find my troll, I'll give him presents)

And I think I speak for all of us here at SCD when I say that we have all found 'our Troll'.

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Oh you're all enjoying this aren't you?
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It all kicks off from tomorrow. Be there, or be somewhere else.

Quote from: Trollheart on Nov 30, 2024, 07:15 PM

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V
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The showdown of the year!
Mark E. Smith meets Trollheart
and

One Must Fall!

It all kicks off from tomorrow. Be there, or be somewhere else.

I wasn't sure if you had it in you Trolls...I thought you might renege when met with your options...errr...option. But that being said, this should be fucking fantastic - legendary, even - assuming you can make it through the entire discography, and if not, perhaps the project will still be infamous.  :laughing:  This is the best birthday present I could ever ask for!  8) (Any chance you could change the thread title to reflect what you're covering? Or are you going to break it out into a new thread?)

So, I take it your plan is to just go chronologically? So Live At The Witch Trials should be first on deck?

@jadis you gotta come back and see how Trolls fares!

Ladies and Gentleman...The Fall!

[/quote]

Let's see, in order:
1. I hate you
2. I hate you
3. I hate you
oh, and have I said I hate you? I hate you.  :laughing:

Seriously, no in all fairness I'd be a right prick if I said "give me anything" and then said "oh, but not that. Or that. And I'm definitely not touching that." Nah, I made my bed, now it's time to lie down on the sharp nails and face my nemesis.

Changing the title of the thread? Yeah I'm a mod so I guess I can do that. Ah, if you only knew the POWER!!
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Is Live at the Witch Trials live? Cos I don't do live albums. I know that may sound like a strange question but it wouldn't surprise me: Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner is meant to be live but isn't, and this is The Fall we're talking about. I'm just doing all studio releases (God knows there are enough!) - I think I said that in the OP.

You will have to rein in your resentment as I put down your favourite band probably, but I won't go into it with the intention of tearing them apart. I've heard in all two Fall songs, one of which was okay, so I have really no idea what to expect. If I get weird noise and effects and grunts and groans and people banging dustbin lids while running a series of timed exploding photocopiers and reciting Shakespeare in Aramaic, I'll say that's what I hear. If I like it* then I'll say so. I'd like to be able not to run them down, but I feel they may be the ones in the car heading for me at top speed. We'll see. Well, I do have one thing on Smith: I'm far more alive than he is, so there.

Hell, if it amuses then that's something. At least I'll have one avid reader.
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Day four: "But officer, honestly, all I asked him to do was listen to all the albums by The Fall! What do you mean, I'm under arrest? In a coma? May never wake up? Can I pump the last 40,000 albums through headphones to him? Hey Troll! You reneged, man!  :laughing:  :laughing:

* (https://neural.love/cdn/thumbnails/1ed83e6b-c1fc-6fbe-b07d-59b71e531786/a799f23c-c0bf-546f-bef4-74bd199b2f6f.webp?Expires=1767225599&Signature=wdGXh5ZKvm2vuZj~oFt68PNDLibcUGwg9rf1A2x50iAdX-tdAtmXWYmIZiWoS~zJRHckqP9j7CrdcvyF~xPLnuUkaAbUpQMwqEhWJtx3c7c4WzzDSesoEcJHE2xzcEdQyT68uk7DAupPtTOKsYVrpPxFigOmCweGUGLtmBEESd7jMNfYonSBvQbn7M9d9kCwJ-vk5MOxvJGO2g8AAQi2AgPvohvAkSGy0rHSmo~vNPz5r9JLDER9ZPHlNgT9w2o6h7oFfJBXY7FkXxMPTMYeupHWl7Gq9aqkjjVQ1nE8rZed8uBiDwBVK6X2O9guZf~GfROteyeCbg2kG5ZLGFhZSQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K2RFTOXRBNSROX)

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 01, 2024, 01:29 AMLet's see, in order:
1. I hate you
2. I hate you
3. I hate you
oh, and have I said I hate you? I hate you.  :laughing:

Seriously, no in all fairness I'd be a right prick if I said "give me anything" and then said "oh, but not that. Or that. And I'm definitely not touching that." Nah, I made my bed, now it's time to lie down on the sharp nails and face my nemesis.

Changing the title of the thread? Yeah I'm a mod so I guess I can do that. Ah, if you only knew the POWER!!
(https://media.vlipsy.com/vlips/Bl9qXrgq/preview.jpg)
Is Live at the Witch Trials live? Cos I don't do live albums. I know that may sound like a strange question but it wouldn't surprise me: Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner is meant to be live but isn't, and this is The Fall we're talking about. I'm just doing all studio releases (God knows there are enough!) - I think I said that in the OP.

You will have to rein in your resentment as I put down your favourite band probably, but I won't go into it with the intention of tearing them apart. I've heard in all two Fall songs, one of which was okay, so I have really no idea what to expect. If I get weird noise and effects and grunts and groans and people banging dustbin lids while running a series of timed exploding photocopiers and reciting Shakespeare in Aramaic, I'll say that's what I hear. If I like it* then I'll say so. I'd like to be able not to run them down, but I feel they may be the ones in the car heading for me at top speed. We'll see. Well, I do have one thing on Smith: I'm far more alive than he is, so there.

Hell, if it amuses then that's something. At least I'll have one avid reader.
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Day four: "But officer, honestly, all I asked him to do was listen to all the albums by The Fall! What do you mean, I'm under arrest? In a coma? May never wake up? Can I pump the last 40,000 albums through headphones to him? Hey Troll! You reneged, man!  :laughing:  :laughing:

* (https://neural.love/cdn/thumbnails/1ed83e6b-c1fc-6fbe-b07d-59b71e531786/a799f23c-c0bf-546f-bef4-74bd199b2f6f.webp?Expires=1767225599&Signature=wdGXh5ZKvm2vuZj~oFt68PNDLibcUGwg9rf1A2x50iAdX-tdAtmXWYmIZiWoS~zJRHckqP9j7CrdcvyF~xPLnuUkaAbUpQMwqEhWJtx3c7c4WzzDSesoEcJHE2xzcEdQyT68uk7DAupPtTOKsYVrpPxFigOmCweGUGLtmBEESd7jMNfYonSBvQbn7M9d9kCwJ-vk5MOxvJGO2g8AAQi2AgPvohvAkSGy0rHSmo~vNPz5r9JLDER9ZPHlNgT9w2o6h7oFfJBXY7FkXxMPTMYeupHWl7Gq9aqkjjVQ1nE8rZed8uBiDwBVK6X2O9guZf~GfROteyeCbg2kG5ZLGFhZSQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K2RFTOXRBNSROX)

 :laughing:  :laughing:

No, Live At The Witch Trials is not a live album, despite its misleading name. One fun fact about it though is that it was recorded in a single day, and if memory serves, MES wasn't feeling well during the recording.

No resentment will be had...even if you end up despising 90% of it with every fiber of your being, I won't try to change your mind or hold it against you, in fact, it should be good for a laugh! - The Fall can be very divisive. Trust me, my wife absolutely hates them, and most of my family and friends (in real life) do too, so I've heard it all.  :laughing:

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 01, 2024, 01:29 AMIf I get weird noise and effects and grunts and groans and people banging dustbin lids while running a series of timed exploding photocopiers and reciting Shakespeare in Aramaic, I'll say that's what I hear.

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@SGR while we're on the subject of The Fall you may be interested to know that I've been occasionally perusing their work in hopes of finding something that I can vibe with, and lo and behold, I found a track that I think actually fucking rules.
I think the delivery and inflection of Mark E Smith's voice works much better with this kind of rhythm than the more rambly stuff I was familiar with.

Perhaps this is the first crack in the once impenetrable armor of this band. I'm inspired now so maybe I'll follow along with TH's journey hehe.

Do it for me, Lexi. I've got money. Okay, I haven't got money, but I can get it. I swear. It's no problem. Banks think they have such great security these days, but they'll see. Oh yes, they'll all see!

I can go as high as a fiver.
:shycouch:
All right, all right! Four Euros.
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Quote from: Lexi Darling on Dec 01, 2024, 03:46 AM@SGR while we're on the subject of The Fall you may be interested to know that I've been occasionally perusing their work in hopes of finding something that I can vibe with, and lo and behold, I found a track that I think actually fucking rules.

I think the delivery and inflection of Mark E Smith's voice works much better with this kind of rhythm than the more rambly stuff I was familiar with.

Perhaps this is the first crack in the once impenetrable armor of this band. I'm inspired now so maybe I'll follow along with TH's journey hehe.

That's an excellent track, one which I actually have a bit of lurid history with, but I don't want to derail Trolls thread too much. But yeah, that track was produced by Coldcut and was the first single from the Fall's rather underrated (historically) 1990 album (and first album after Brix Smith's [first] departure from the band), Extricate. It was a sign of things to come as The Fall, throughout the 90s, would become a bit more experimental in their instrumentation, particularly with the addition of electronics/keyboards from Dave Bush and then Julia Nagle. The important thing for The Fall is that regardless of what instruments make up their sound, it still must adhere to the tried-and-true authentic Fall formula of "the three R's": Repetition, Repetition, Repetition. Mark had some humorous commentary on the track as well:

Quote[Coldcut's recording] was a misjustice to the tune. That single was a flop and it was rubbish. You see, they compose all their shit on machines, so I got the band to learn it, played naturally. So it's very different indeed. I just think it's topical - like all Fall singles. I think it's good to have a go at things like that - British Rail and British Telecom. It's a natural gripe. One time, I was using the phone a lot and I dialled a number and I could hear people munching sandwiches and talking about my last phone call. I actually rang up the operator and said 'Lookl I'm trying to dial a fucking number here and I can't get through because people are talking about my phone calls! Have you got a bleedin' license to do this?

 :laughing:

Here's a live version of the track from 1990 (after the track, they bust out the flute to play their song "I'm Frank", a tribute to Zappa):


I do hope you stick around and follow Trolls' journey though @Lexi Darling - who knows, it's possible you'll have more fun than he does. :laughing:

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Their music was generally characterised by an abrasive, repetitive guitar-driven sound, tense bass and drum rhythms, and Smith's caustic lyrics.[4] The critic Simon Reynolds described Smith's lyrics as "a kind of Northern English magic realism that mixed industrial grime with the unearthly and uncanny," voiced through a "one-note delivery somewhere between amphetamine-spiked rant and alcohol-addled yarn"

Into the bed I made for myself I crawl, and I won't be getting up for a month! Well, I did ask for this, and it would be unfair to try to wriggle out of it, but I can't say I'm looking forward to it. Look at the Wiki quote above: hardly sounds like the kind of music I'm into now does it? To be fair, I've heard precisely three Fall tracks, and one was all right, so it may not be the torture I envisage. Then again, it may be a month-long descent into Hell for me. Or something in between. As ever, when reviewing, though I can't pretend this will be unbiased, I will try to make it appear so; in other words, while I'm going in with certain preconceptions about this band, I'm prepared to have my mind changed, and if something impresses me I will say so. I'll also not shy from telling you exactly what I think if I don't like it, and as ever, standard Trollheart disclaimer*, nobody should take offence or start loading up a shotgun and booking tickets to Ireland. It is, after all, when it comes right down to it, only music, and you guys can slag off Bon Jovi and Journey and any other artist I'm into, and I don't mind. At least, it will appear that way until... well, let's just say you won't have time to see it coming, and leave it at that for now.

And so, as they say on some little-known show about dragons, my watch begins.


(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/ce/Bingo-Master%27s_Break-Out%21_cover.jpg)
Title: Bingo-Master's Break-out
Medium: EP
Year: 1978
General opinion: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music says  "a good example of Smith's surreal vision, coloured by his relentlessly northern working-class vigil."
Trollheart Falls in: I have to admit, it's just typical of the cash-strapped bands of the late 1970s, isn't it? Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon had intended to release this on his own label, but in the end couldn't afford it and gave the tapes back to The Fall, who ended up releasing it a year later. "Sorry man. Love your music, but just don't have the scratch to release it. Best of luck though, and, you know, never mind."**

Why have I chosen this, instead of the first album proper? Fuck knows, but if there's one thing I do not want to be accused of, it's skipping material or releases. That said, I have already made it clear that at no stage in this project will I be listening to, including or reviewing either live albums or compilations (The fucking Fall seem to have as many of both of these as they do studio albums! I'd be listening twenty-four-seven!) but if a band releases an EP it's often, as in this case, their first music to be heard by the public at large, and also can contain songs or tracks not available on their albums, so I'm starting with this, so nobody can accuse me of not doing this properly.

Plus, hell, it's only three tracks. Can't get permanent brain damage from three tracks, can I? Hah! Fooled you! I already have permanent brain damage, so there. First track is very punk I would say, with a more called vocal than sung, fast guitar and I guess I can see why the Buzzcocks were interested. I assume music like this tends to be short if not sweet, and the whole EP runs for a total of just over 9 minutes, this coming in at just over two minutes, and it's called "Psycho Mafia". It's, well, it's all right I guess, and it's followed by the equally short but much slower, almost plodding "Bingo-Master", with a ponderous drum beat which, oh, speeds up unexpectedly. Smith is more singing this time than just talking, and the guitars are hard and sharp. Again, it's not bad. It's actually quite impressive how they fit so much into two and a half minutes.

The third track is the longest, over five minutes and "Repetition"  sounds a bit more like I kind of expect from these guys, something of a chaotic mess, though to be fair it settles down into a lazy guitar groove fairly quickly, the vocal kind of sneered this time it seems to me, a bit more aggressive and at the same time sort of disinterested? I guess in general I'd compare this slightly to Nick Cave's debut album, The Firstborn is Dead. Which I hate. But I don't quite hate this, and now we move on to the first album proper.

Rating: :3stars:

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 1
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 1 The Fall

* Disclaimer not valid in Jersey, Mexico, Canada or The Ascension Islands

** In-joke for Buzzcocks fans. Of which I am not one.

Covering EPs too?! Now that's the spirit!  :beer: Luckily for you, The Fall don't have too many of those. But thankfully, that means you'll have to cover the legendary Slates, of which there seems to be little consensus as to whether it's an album, mini-album, or EP

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Title: Live at the Witch Trials
Medium: Album
Year: 1978
General opinion: Seems to have been generally positive. We have  "a rugged, concerned, attuned, rebellious jukebox" (Record Mirror) "an album of staggeringly rich, mature music, inner questioning hand in hand with rock and roll at its fiercest, its finest, its most honest, rock and roll at its naked, most stimulating prime." (Sounds) while author of that book 1000 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Robert Christau, said it was "too tuneless and crude" but later compared it to Public Image Limited. Make of that what you will.
Trollheart Falls in: I guess this is where my Fall journey really begins, with an album that has 11 tracks, so I imagine if nothing else will give me a decent idea of what they are, or were, like. Okay I was going to say that's very pleasant; a sweeping synth melody and drum machine combined with an acoustic guitar... then I realised it was yet another fucking YouTube ad! Oh my! Go on then: bring on the abrasive rock, I'm ready. Sort of. And rather appropriately, the opening track, and therefore the first the world got to hear of them (assuming they hadn't heard the EP) is called "Frightened". I swear, you couldn't make this up!

Does it live up to its title, this dark gateway into the wonderful and, apparently, frightening world of The Fall? Um, no. No it does not. I had to check again to make sure it wasn't another ad, or one of those annoying fucking videos they slot in for some reason into playlists, music that has no relation to what you're listening to (why do they do that, and how?) but no, this is the song all right, and it's a pleasant, laid back guitar melody with Smith talking his way through it, but far less aggressive than he was on the EP. A big surprise. A nasty one? Are they going to batter me over the head with riffs and blast beats in the next track? Am I being lulled into a false sense of security, lured down a dark alleyway only to be beaten up and robbed?

I think I compared Mark Smith to The The's Matt Johnson before, and if not, I'm doing so now. He has the same sort of nervous, almost manic energy Johnson has, though the latter tends to focus and direct it more, but in some ways they could be music brothers. "Crap Rap 2/Like to Blow" is a bit more like what I expect, punky guitar, chopped chords, bit of a mess, but a very solid bass line I must say, while "Rebellious Jukebox" has a very teen angst feel to it, the first I think where the keyboards come into the foreground. Funny song really, kind of an "Anarchy in the UK But Remember the Neighbour's Children are Trying to Sleep and They Said Next Time They Would Call the Cops So Not Too Loud Guys!" The chant is hilarious.

One of only two songs on the album written solo by Smith (the bulk of the others are written with the guitarist Mark Bramah) "No Xmas for John Quays" contains an interesting idea, that the X in Christmas is "a crucifix, a replacement for Christ." Could be, could be. It's a fairly frenetic track, a bit directionless, and at this point, though I have no basis upon which to say so, I can see why Smith needed help writing. This is pretty terrible. It's just the same chords more or less played over and over again. I guess that's punk for ya. I do like the opening line of "Mother-Sister!": "What are we gonna sing about?" and the answer "Uh, nothing!" Good piano line and squelchy keyboard run gives this a kind of almost carnival, fun quality, then it breaks into a punk rock, heads-down-get-the-fuck-out-of-my-way charge on the guitar, before being reined back in and allowing the keys to take over the melody again. Then the guitar slips its bonds and goes on another wild run before being captured and put in the corner as the keyboards keep a wary eye on it, knowing that take its eyes off the bloody thing for just a moment and... ah there it goes again! Fucking funny.

Eventually the guitar just gets loose and goes on a rampage and vanishes into the distance, then takes revenge in "Industrial Estate", where it runs proceedings, the only real contribution from the exasperated keyboard player being a two-note riff stabbed into the melody, as if she's had enough of that fucking guitar player and he can do what he likes. The general tone of the song reminds me of the classic "Jilted John", which always puts a smile on my face. Some things are just so bad they have to be seen as good. The keys make a last point as the song ends, then it's "Your nervous system, your nervous system" as "Underground Medecin" (no it's not a misspelling, so far as I can see) goes a bit mad for two minutes, some almost Doors-like keyboards slicing into the track, before we take "Two Steps Back" with a grinding, chugging guitar paired with almost church style organ while Smith goes back to talking the lyric mostly.

This song features the first what I would call a proper guitar solo, which shows Bramah can really play, though I would say at just over five minutes there's not really enough in the song to justify its length, and it devolves into something of a jam. Mind you, the next one, which is also, as it were, the title track, is shorter than a minute, so maybe, you know, swings and roundabouts. Nice little guitar with Smith literally talking against it, then "Futures and Pasts" is a fast punk song full of energy and not a lot else really, with the closer being a rather worrying eight minutes long.

"Music Scene" is the only track on the album on which keyboard player Yvonne Pawlett claims a co-writing credit, so I can hope there'll be a fair bit of keyswork in it. So far it seems to be mostly bass-driven with a sharp guitar in the background - ah, there are the keys now. It's a pretty repetitive piece of music, though it seems that may be a hallmark of The Fall; not a good idea to look for intricate involved compositions with them. I guess they know what they can do, and do it to the best of their ability. Can't really fault them for that.

Overall, not terrible but definitely not something I'd be looking to listen to again. Still, my head remains attached, so that's something.

Rating: 5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 1
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 2 The Fall

What is the 'score' at the bottom? Is anything 5 or above a score for The Fall and anything less is a score for you? How does that work?

Great write-up of their first record. Personally, while I do like the record, I very rarely listen to it. Their later stuff is much more interesting to me.

Yes the score is me (didn't like it/hated it/couldn't understand it) versus them (made me like it or at least not hate it). You can think of it as a football game (or use whatever sporting analogy you wish) - when they win me over they score a goal against me, and when they don't I score a goal against them. So essentially, the more that's on their side, the more they're winning and the more I'm either coming around to their music or can't find anything to really hate about it. It jsut literally builds up: each time I listen to an album or EP I don't hate, they get a score of 1, and if I do hate it I get a score of 1, and it goes on like that. It's not a rating system, just a tally of how I'm doing versus them. Early days yet, all to play for, as they say!

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f6/Dragnet_%28The_Fall_album_-_cover_art%29.jpg)
Title: Dragnet
Medium: Album
Year: 1979
General opinion: Again, pretty positive. Sounds said "The Fall have never been stronger, the sound is more concise, more assured and Mark Smith's writing has an aura of confidence and direction to it." while that bastion of the music press, er, The Boise Weekly, thought it was "the blueprint for The Fall's golden age of the early 1980s: paper-thin rockabilly with tinny, meandering guitars and lilting keyboards." Vulture agreed, saying it was "the first album where the Fall tap into their powers of hypnosis, locking into the sinister back-alley prowl of 'Before the Moon Falls' and the Morse code, cowbell-clanged pummel of 'Spectre vs Rector,' all while Smith transcends from the realm of mere punk carnival barker to oracle of the underground."
Trollheart Falls in: So here I go on my second foray into the music of The Fall. Just check the line is secure to something before I - the line is secure to something, isn't iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii....?

We open with Smith asking "is there anybody there?" while the rest of the band answer in the affirmative, and a repetitive guitar riff takes us into "Psykick Dancehall", more of that punk energy in it, the vocal drawled or moaned, then "A Figure Walks" has a very sparse guitar line leading it, a little more restrained than the opener, with Smith doing his best to sing this time, getting there. There's definitely something catchy about this, starting to hear the keyboards for the first time as the organ comes in. Shut up. It's an extremely simple idea in the lyric (basically, a figure walks behind you, and I can guess that it's unlikely to be up to any good) but somehow it works. Like the lively guitar bit at the end.

"Printhead" kicks the energy right back up to ten, guitarist Marc Riley's fingers flying over the fretboard, and again it's a pretty simple song, not without its charm. At less than two minutes, "Dice Man" is the shortest track on the album, which kind of follows the basic melody of "I Fought the Law", made famous by The Clash the previous year, and "Before the Moon Falls" has Smith sort of muttering the vocal which is all but drowned out by Riley's guitar playing initially. A slower song, it punches along, knocking down anyone foolish enough to get in its way, almost a kind of steam locomotive energy to it, while "Your Heart Out" reminds me of some sort of tribal dance or maybe the music of snake charmers or something, with heavy, hollow percussion and a whining guitar. Oh no wait the playlist has missed one: this is "Murzorewi's Daughter." So where the fuck is "Your Heart Out", guys, huh? Let's just finish this one and I'll see if I can find it.  I have to admit, maybe it's just me, but it sounds like Smith is singing "I'm fucking with his daughter"?

This playlist is certainly fucking with me though. Let's see. Ok this one has it. Right. This is a bright, upbeat, almost surf rock (ah, if only I knew what I was talking about huh?) version of "Parklife" by Blur. Very bouncy, very catchy. Wonder if Damon Albarn got his singing style from Mark Smith? Hmm. Right, well at least I'm caught up now. What's next? "Flat of Angles" seems to have some mad kind of sub-Mexican vibe going on, which is odd to say the least, some blues mixed in there too maybe, while "Choc-Stock" sounds a bit of a joke, whistling jauntily along on a breezy guitar riff and an almost commercial jingle sound. "Spectre vs Rector" is the longest track on the album, almost eight minutes long, and changes the mood entirely, with sharp, snarling, chopping guitar that might be more at home on a Black Sabbath album than a punk one, a very hard to hear vocal sounding as if Smith is singing at the end of a tunnel or something (watch out for the 9:20 from Epsom, Mark!) and overall I'd say this is the most, well, muddy track on the album, very difficult to make out what's going on.

The guitar work here reminds me slightly of that of Marc Ribot, and there's a whole lot of feedback going on too, just to add to the general confusion and almost unlistenability (is that a word? It is now) of the song. This is going to be way too long for my liking. Yeah I'd have to say that was really terrible. One track left, and "Put Away" is another fast, uptempo guitar-led number with again Smith very hard to hear as he sings, or talks. Oh I can hear him now, and he is singing and there's some decent guitar solo-ing going on.

Look, I'm tempted to let the bad experience of "Rector vs Spectre" allow me to put this album down, but in general I think that would be unfair. I wouldn't say I've enjoyed it, but up till then I didn't hate it, so in fairness I'd have to still give it to the boys. Not in any way a fan yet, but not clawing my own eyes out yet either.

Rating: 5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 3
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 3 The Fall

A couple thoughts on Dragnet: I might argue that this second album is The Fall at their most fun, irreverent and silly. MES's young and vibrant (and not yet too grumpy) personality on display in many of the tracks - like his shrill faux-falsetto in "Muzorewi's Daughter" and his bouncy and enthusiastic "Ba-dah-buh-dah, Ba-dah,buh-daaah"s in "Put Away". This is also, despite the fun, one of the crudest production jobs on a Fall record. It feels and sounds very sloppy. And yet, somehow, The Fall managed a studio record 22 years later that sounds even cruder and sloppier, against all odds (like it was recorded on secondhand and sometimes faulty equipment in the garage of the newly recruited bassist - come to think of it, that record might actually have been recorded in the attic of a bowling alley...or something like that). One of the Fall's best tracks around the time was scooped out and released as a standalone single and wasn't included on either Dragnet or the following album (Grotesque):


Anyways, the only real hint at what's to come in the immediate future on this record are the kazoos. With their next record, the foundations for The Fall's sound throughout the '80s would really come into view.

Great write-up Trolls!  :)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/10/Grotesque_cover.jpg)
Title: Grotesque (After the Gramme)
Medium: Album
Year: 1980
General opinion: According to SGR, our resident authority on them, " With their next record, the foundations for The Fall's sound throughout the '80s would really come into view."  Sounds called it  "rock n' roll with a conscience" while our friend Bob Christgau characterised it as "poetry readings with two-chord backing", theNME said it was The Falls'  "least flawed album"  but believed the band had yet to reach its full potential, Allmusic said it was "sharp rockabilly leads and random art rock racket" while Rolling Stone went further, calling it  "the first truly great Fall album". Trollheart said, "What the fuck are you asking me for? I haven't even heard the damn thing yet!"
Trollheart Falls in: It's another manic start as the guitars kick in and I'm sure punks everywhere would have been dancing to this, but then they would have been confused as it slows down, then happy as it speeds up again, then confused as it... well, you get the idea. It's called "Pay Your Rates", which I assume refers to council rent. Smith doesn't seem to be able to keep a straight face here as he sings* and neither can I really. I'm sure Thatcher would have been impressed. Mad guitar outro, just frenetic to the max. Sounds like there may be keyboards there as "English Scheme" starts, a little more restrained, still bouncy, sort of catchy. The production is better here anyway, though an album recorded on sticky toffee in a public toilet would have been better produced than that, which I think is generally acknowledged.

Pretty short, just two minutes and a few odd seconds (very odd) and in we go to "New Face in Hell", where I understand why one reviewer said it was like Smith reciting poetry against two-chords. I could almost draw a weak parallel here between him and Waits. Kind of. The guitar work, to be fair, is, as someone who used to reign over nocturnal flying rodents used to say, bitchin'. Very groovy man. I like this one a lot, I got to say, and that's surprising, not only because it's a Fall song, but because it's nearly six minutes long. Oh right: there are the kazoos SGR was talking about. Funny, they are.

Smith's high-pitched shrieks remind me of someone with Tourette's, the way the voice just goes up in a sort of screech. Not sure if that's an affectation, part of how he sings, or if his pants are too tight. Anyway, cool song, if very repetitive, something I'm coming to appreciate is a hallmark of the music of The Fall, at least the early stuff. Decent keyboard honks in there too. The next one is even longer (though not the longest on the album), clocking in at a Falltastic seven and a half minutes. I have no idea what the title means. I doubt it matters.

"C'n'C-S Mithering" comes in on a ponderous bass line, walking along in company with a wary guitar, no doubt anticipating the arrival of Screech sorry Smith, but it's actually almost drum-pads percussion they meet first. Fucker would be late to his own funeral. Sorry. Oh I think I hear him down the road there in the distance, in no hurry to meet up with the other three. Ah here he comes now. I wouldn't call the "singing" he does here so much a rap, but more, perhaps, spoken word a la Gil Scott-Heron? Quite effective anyway. The beat is very catchy, very swaggering along daring anyone it meets to even say anything about what it's wearing, its hair or the strange hybrid of Pit Bull and Doberman that's straining at its leash as it walks along.

A lot of stabs at the record industry here (he must have loved the rise of the democracy of digital downloads, and yes that is a lot of d's, damn it), make you wonder how they ever got a deal. Then again, this was the age of independent record labels I guess. "The Container Drivers" is a great bit of fun, slagging off truckers, which I guess was a bit brave of him, given the general reputation they have in music, almost all positive. I also like this one a lot; the way it speeds up almost in a Benny Hill theme ("Yakety-yak", I do believe) is pretty hilarious. I wonder what their road crew thought of it? Probably assumed they were the exceptions.

And on to side two, with "Impression of J. Temperance." I should point out that most of the comments I've made with reference to the lyrics has been gained through reading the Wiki page - most of what he sings is not as such indecipherable, but I don't get the real theme behind the song (if there is one) just by listening. There do appear to be some deep lyrical ideas in there too, not just "Smash the fookin' SYSTEM!", which is good to see. The sharp guitar complements the busy bass line here very well, the latter quite hypnotic in its way. The riff is slightly reminiscent of something like The Twilight Zone theme, though whether or not it's meant to be I don't know.

The next two tracks are very short, "In the Park" just missing the two-minute mark, while "WMC-Blob 59" (huh?) barely makes it past one. The former has a manic guitar line and, um, sexy sound effects and is, apparently, about "doing it" in public. Right. The weirdly-named other track is, well, as weird as its name, with sounds of recordings, effects, speech, and I kind of don't get it, colour you all surprised I know. Back to - sort of - normality then with "Gramme Friday" (possibly to do with the subtitle of the album) which slides in on another of those fine bass lines (does this bass player get the credit he deserves among fans? He's really upfront and an indispensable part of their sound) then runs along jauntily with its hands in its pockets, head nodding no doubt to a Sex Pistols tune, kind of a sense of some old TV cop show in there as well for some reason. More shrieks here. Of course there are.

The final track is a humongous nine minutes long. "The N.W.R.A." (The North Will Rise Again") is another breezy tune, slipping along nicely with Smith basically talking against the music, not sure how nine minutes and eight seconds of that is going to sound; perhaps it will evolve as it goes along? Yeah, and perhaps I'll win Miss World. This is his most aggressive, or at least loudest vocal, but for once the lyric and the melody (such as it is) match, and you can actually hear the makings of a real song, if, again, a very repetitive one. Oh there's my mate the bass player - what is his name? Steve Harley?? Oh no, HANley - injecting another cool run into the song. Nice. Oh wow, it's almost over already. That was pretty good.

Yeah, don't make the mistake of pegging me for a Fall fan (Faller? Fallite? Failte?) just yet, but I think I would have to say this is the first album of theirs that, a few tracks aside, I have actually quite enjoyed.

Got me again, lads!


Rating: 7.5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 4
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 4 The Fall

* you know what I mean..

Glad to see how much you enjoyed Grotesque! Steve Hanley is, in fact, dearly loved among Fall fans. Though the Fall has had 60+ members throughout its history, Steve Hanley had the second longest tenure in the group besides Mark, and his signature bass sound was a distinct part of their formula. Unfortunately, even he had enough after an on-stage fight during a concert in 1998 in New York that would soon end in Mark getting arrested after assaulting his then girlfriend and keyboardist Julia Nagle.

MES tried to get him back in the band to no avail.

A bit more enrichment - a couple of The Fall's most iconic singles that were recorded around the time of Grotesque (but never had a proper album release) - "Totally Wired" and "How I Wrote Elastic Man":



If memory serves, The Fall's famous mini-album/EP/album Slates is next (I think the consensus is EP, but among Fall fans, there is never consensus). Can't wait!  :)

(https://media.tenor.com/4kaJlIM8-ZMAAAAM/waiting-simpsons.gif)

(https://www.goldderby.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/9.19.jpg?w=620)
Ah, hold yer horses! I'm a-gittn' there!

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/be/The_Fall_Slates.jpg)
Title: Slates
Medium: EP
Year: 1981
General opinion: Despite being an EP, most critics and fans seem to believe it's the greatest Fall album ever! Allmusic said it was  "Not a bad taster if you're new and want some post-punk, pre-pop Fall – and 90 percent of this is prime material." Trouser Press called it "A solid record of greater potential appeal than just to cultists." The Wire (the magazine not the show) enthused that "Mark E. Smith's unfooled bile seems perfectly dialectically visionary, wearily energised, utterly untimely: his un-musicality a higher music. 'Naive' anti-design sleeve design, rhythms that jerk along like speedheads addicted to paranoia side-effect; a guitar-sound jabbing barbs into your skin, razor-edge squeals into your head—Man With Chip's voice yabbers scarily on through a thick fog of textured noise." Yeah. Whatever that means. And Homer sorry Dave Simspson, in his book The Fallen (catchy title) explained that "Even more than Grotesque, Slates manages to skirt the boundaries of demented Northern rockabilly, experimental rock, and avant garde, but despite that manages to be insanely poppy".
Trollheart Falls in: Pretty catchy guitar intro anyway, that bass line standing out again, kind of gives this opener a semi-country feel, "Middle Mass" showing Smith in better singing form than he's been almost on any of the recordings yet. It's again lyrically challenged, in that it's really repetitive, but a decent start for sure. Sounds like the entire percussion drops out for the second section, or it's very sparse anyway, the guitar and bass carrying the tune. The next track actually fades in - I think that's the first Fall song that's done that - led by the bass line again, with a lower-key vocal, not quite back to speaking rather than singing, but "An Older Lover Etc.," is not quite as melodious as the opener. And he's back with the shrieking.

"Prole Art Threat" is the shortest on this short EP, a few seconds off two minutes, is also the fastest and most manic of the tracks so far, going pretty much mad with a sort of punk meets industrial melange, or something, and Smith decides to talk through this one rather than sing. Pretty chaotic really. Could have done without that. Next up is "Fit and Working Again", which gets back into the groove, humming along nicely on that buzzing bass line and sharp gasps of guitar. I see pianos credited here (three of them) but so far I ain't heard note one.

And there are only two tracks left, though one is the longest on the EP, at six and a half minutes, up next. "Slates, Slags etc.," (second track of six to use "etc." in the title) is guitar-driven and though I thought I heard organ, I see none in the list, and that sure isn't a piano. You do definitely get the idea that the melodies are written and then Smith just adds his lyrics over them, with no real eye towards the two meshing in any meaningful way. It's not dissonant, as such, but most of the time the two don't follow each other as they would in a normal song.

The short EP then ends on "Leave the Capitol" (which, forty years later, would have been a very appropriate song to have played on January 6 2021!) which is certainly more tuneful, with Smith doing a passable impression of a Bee Gee on it. I guess this is part of the continuing war between north and south as he slags off London, possibly even a companion song to "The N.W.R.A." I can agree with the reviewer who called it unforgettable, as in it's a tune that gets into your head, an early form of post-punk earworm perhaps.

And still not hide nor hair of a pianner. 

Pretty decent stuff generally, but I still prefer the last album. Now when did you ever think those words would fall from my keyboard? Damn The Fall: they're deliberately making me not hate them.

Rating: 6/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 5
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 5 The Fall

Another great writeup Trolls! While I think Slates is excellent, I do find it's a tad bit overrated in The Fall canon, especially among fans. Maybe it comes down to the fact that it's an EP, but it's always felt like more of an appetizer than something that will really satiate your appetite. And once again, a great contemporary Fall single (and b-side) was left off of the project and never got a proper album release:



One great thing about Slates though is that it has no fluff (like "WMC Blob 59" on Grotesque, having one throwaway, piss-take track becomes something of a standard for The Fall by the '90s), and it gets right down to business in terms of what The Fall are about - so you could reasonably give it to a new initiate if they wanted a quick sample of their music.

What was Slates an appetizer for though? Well, for their next album, Hex Enduction Hour, of course! Where they recruit a lineup of two drummers to help utterly assault your senses (including your sense of decency) with one of the greatest phalanx-walls of noise, chaos, and serene meditation The Fall ever managed to put to tape. How would I pique one's interest in the album without really ruining it? Well, one moment it sounds like you've stumbled upon a construction site that you know not how to contribute anything to because of the echoing rattle of jackhammers, and the next moment, it sounds like you've accidentally fallen ass-backwards into a secret cult meeting featuring the performance of a mystical incantation in the secluded and lonely woods. 

Good luck tomorrow, Trolls! :laughing:

(https://media4.giphy.com/media/Qe5oD5aXjEbKw/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952jh8h13sxgb0jt7bq96akqgehp2zn0ctzxs11gi6i&ep=v1_gifs_search&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8f/Hex_Enduction_Hour.jpg)
Title:  Hex Enduction Hour
Medium: Album
Year: 1982
General opinion: Doesn't anyone have anything bad to say about these guys? NME said this album was  "their master piece to date", Melody Maker said it was  "incredibly exciting and utterly compelling" and Sounds burbled that it was  "the furthest adventure the Fall have ever embarked upon, one that absorbs and holds the listener in a grip of iron. It is also more importantly the Fall's finest hour.". Sycophantic bastards. Oh wait, an Irishman (we can assume it's taken as read he was drunk) said in Hot Press that if the album was "meant to be minimalist or primitive then it fatally ignores the true primitivism of the strong melody and accessible lyrics found in folk music." G'wan ya good thing, ya! You tell 'em! Mine's a Guinness.
Trollheart Falls in: Okay, well with SGR's ominous forewarning and a crucifix held in front of me, representation of a god I do not believe in, I wonder if this is in fact the sort of Fall album I've been sneering at up until I began this perhaps ill-fated project? And yet, Wiki tells me it was their first album to chart, so how does that square? Hold my top hat, would you old bean? One is, don't you know, going in. Tally ho!*

There's my favourite bass player humming away, though the rest of it is quite confused, Smith and possibly others just talking in the background as the oddly-named "The Classical" starts the album off, some rather nice guitar breaking through, but then kind of subsumed back into the general chaos. Actually, as I listen to it, it's more like a "normal" Fall track (how mad is it that I can now use that phrase?) that they're kind of trying to disguise or obscure by making the production very muddy, but it's not really, when you get right down to it, that different to the stuff I've heard before, and settles down rather quickly.

It's interesting that about half of the tracks here are credited to "The Fall", first time they've done that. "Jawbone and the Air-Rifle" (look, I've given up raising my eyebrows at the titles of Fall songs, and I'm just going with it now, letting the whole thing sweep me along) has a fast guitar opening that soon changes to a much more relaxed and tuneful riff before rushing headlong off again. "Hip Priest" slows everything down to a crawl, with hi-hats and cowbells (probably; what? I'm not a drummer. Leave me alone) and Smith sort of scream-crooning the vocal in a very laconic way. Well, part of it: he talks the other part. An interesting departure. Think there may be some kind of keyboard effects in here too? Could be on guitar I guess.

A long track, just shaving the eight-minute mark, but not the longest on the album, and it's followed by one nearly as long, "Fortress/Deer Park", with a much chunkier and in-your-face guitar pounding along, sounds like there's a good amount of keys in here too. I would probably say both tracks are far too long, but other than that, not bad. "Mere Pseud Mag. Ed" (remember what I said above?) is far shorter, two and a half minutes, kicks off like a drunken meeting between Shane McGowan and Nick Cave, who then run into wossname from Black Flag**, and off they go happily weaving up the road, scowling at passerby "Wot the fook YOU lookin at?"

Funnily enough, that one seemed to go on longer than either of the other two! Slowing it all down again to a dirge for "Winter (Hostel-Maxi)" with an almost one-note bass line that somehow works and Smith's vocal clear, basically because there's nothing else for a while, the odd note or chord coming in from the guitar, and I think the drummer has gone for a fag. Or maybe a smoke. What's that? There are two of them? Well then, both taking a smoke break at the same time is not a good usage of resources, is it? Oh, here they come now, jumping back into the drum seat. I must say, once it gets its shit together this is pretty rad. Do the kids say rad anymore? No? Good: I don't want to sound like the fuckin' kids of today. Back in my youth, we had proper slang etc etc.

I don't see why record shops had a problem with the cover. It's clearly made that way as a finger to all the slickly-produced art masterpieces adorning everything from pop to prog and metal to jazz in those times. It's not like it's offensive or anything (think Death Grips' No Love Deep Web! ) and in fact I find it quite clever and humorous. Record shop owners can be so up themselves. Serves them right now, all out of business and begging people to buy music online. Napster, Napster! Wherefore art thou, Napster? And you can fuck off, iTunes! We know what you get up to when the lights are off!

"Winter 2" I find another catchy track, which makes two in a row, a bit of a record for this band with me, and the bass line as ever is pretty phenomenal. Oh, and it went into "Just Stop Sways" without me noticing. "Who Makes the Nazis" consists mostly of Smith asking that question against a kind of ringing bass line and thrumming guitar riff, "Iceland" is, as you might expect, quite sparse and bleak and simple, with some sort of whistling going on against an almost marimba melody that sort of bastardises that old song "Popcorn". What? No, I am neither drunk nor high, thank you very much.

The bass line is again, it seems, mostly one note, and I have to admit, if they're using two drummers here it sure don't sound like it. This track slays though: it's totally hypnotic. Man. I read the closer was actually edited down from 25 minutes to the "manageable" 10 it ended up as on the album. Angels and ministers of grace save us, or something. As it is, "And the Day" goes back to the more or less confused, muddy production of the opener (bookending the album? I doubt Smith cared about such things, but maybe you could say it does. And I have) with a clangy, Ribot-like guitar hammering away while himself yowls in the distance. I do hope it gets better because ten minutes of this will be tough to take. Mind you, imagine almost half an hour of it! Small mercies, indeed. Yeah it stayed the same all the way through.

I suppose in fairness, were I to delve into Smith's lyrics I might appreciate the albums more, but I don't really want to understand them on that level, just get to some sort of appreciation, or not, of their music, and so far I would have to say it hasn't been nearly as bad as I had feared. Long way to go though.

Rating: 6/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 6
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 6 The Fall

* There is no logical reason for Trollheart to have suddenly adopted the persona of a nineteenth-century English lord. One can only assume that the general consensus is correct, and that he is indeed a smart cunt.

** Henry Rollins. That's him.

Another great write-up Trolls! Hex was my first Fall album, and somehow, against all odds, I pummeled it into my brain to the point that my brain will almost tune it out as background noise when it's on. As a big fan of "Winter", I'm happy to see you enjoyed that one too! But to your point, I don't really care about lyrics either unless the music can compel me to come back for it (which of course, The Fall does) - MES is well known for his lyrics - he's a bit of a literary junkie himself, or at least, he's rather opinionated on his literature. Sometimes his lyrics can read like poetry:

QuoteThe whole Earth shudders
The surroundings are screaming on the roads
You even mistrust your own feelings
And this day
The old feelings came back

Other times, it can be somewhat straight-forward but descriptive story-telling:

Quote"I thought you were rabbit prey, or a loose sex criminal"
Rifleman, he say, "You see, I get no kicks anymore
From wife or children four
There's been no war for forty years
And getting drunk fills me with guilt
So after eight, I prowl the hills
Eleven o'clock, I'm too tired to fuck
You see, I've been laid off work"

Other times, it's seeming nonsense:

QuoteIt was clear in the window eye
The brick outlined the blue sky
And I had to go round the gay graduates in the toilets
And Good King Harry was there
Fucking Jimmy Savile

Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11
Much discussion in room C-H-1-O-C-H-2-O-11

But I suppose there's always been something totally and utterly convincing about it all to me. Their body of material always, always keeps me coming back for more - and the more I dig, the more I find to love. Looking forward to your take on Room To Live, the last Fall record before we take our first dip into the 'Brix Smith' era of the band.

Here's Paul Hanley (one of the two drummers on Hex, and brother of bassist Steve Hanley) discussing the album:

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/87/Room_to_Live.jpg)
Title: Room to Live (Undilutable Slang Truth!)
Medium: Album
Year: 1982
General opinion: Hmm. Well apparently it was rushed out to capitalise on the success of Hex Enduction Hour (now isn't that ironic?) and some of the band weren't on every track. According to drummer Paul Hanley, Smith's ongoing quirkiness was getting irritating and the album was  "a fucking nightmare. You'd turn up and find Smith had only invited half the band, or brought in other musicians without telling anyone!" The first Fall album not to have every reviewer's tongue up its arse, Sounds said it  "lacks bounce and zap" [and] "musically, the Fall really are a mess" while NME thought the whole thing "sounds as if they've written, recorded and pressed it and still got back in time for last orders". They summed it up as "right crap" and "frustratingly sketchy". Rolling Stone sighed that it "sports fabulously irritated lyrics aimed squarely at bourgeois Britain, undercut by thinner, less compelling music, and an uninterested-sounding Smith." But both Trouser Press and Allmusic disagreed, the former enthusing that "Smith is in top lyrical form, with pungent, satirical views of British life: 'Marquis Cha Cha' offers biting commentary on the Falklands War." while the latter believed it to be "possibly the most archly political and scathing collection of diatribes the Manchester legend spewed forth onto record during what is arguably the group's creative peak" [and] "one of the greatest pieces of post-punk genius the group ever recorded". Let's just say, for once, opinion was divided.
Trollheart Falls in: Does not sound too good for me, does it? An album thrown together in the time it takes to say "Six pints of lager and a packet of pork scratchings when you're ready love", dissent among the band and for once the assembled legions of the music press fighting among themselves. Could be a potential landmine for me to walk through. Oh well, into the valley of death and all that.

Well, "Joker Hysterical Face" comes in on sharp guitar riff and it's quite catchy, with a sort of swingalong beat, the production is fine, no issues with that, doesn't really sound any different to anything I've heard before. A little tighter, even. Don't see anything wrong with that; has my feet moving, and not back the other way towards safety either. There's a spoken but before "Marquis Cha-Cha" gets going on sort of hollow, metallic (?) guitar - yeah, I don't mean it sounds like heavy metal, I just mean it sounds like it's made of metal. Which it is. Ah, you know what I mean, and if you don't, in the best tradition of The Fall, fuck off.

Good engaging riffs on this, though it's not as catchy as the opening track, sort of a little dissonant in ways, or discordant, one or the other. Or both. Couldn't say I particularly like this one now. Ah for fuck's sake! Some idiot left this off their playlist, so I was actually listening to "Hard Life in  Country", which I only realised when I heard the title in the chorus. Jesus on the dole with sixteen kids trying to get by taking occasional shifts down the King's Head! Right then, "Marquis Cha-Cha" is actually played on a buzzy bassline with a sort of Mexican-style guitar (shut up; do you know how hard it is trying to describe this stuff? I'm doing the best I can) and is a lot better than the track that comes after it, which I have already written about.

That takes us to the title track, which has a cool bouncing guitar line and that ever-present and out front bass line, sounds like Craig Scanlon is trying to be The Edge at times. Another more-or-less spoken vocal from Smith, not necessarily in tune or concert with the music, each sort of doing their own thing. Strange blasts of sax here too, for the first time I think on a Fall album. Solo bass then to kick off "Detective Instinct", Smith singing (as such) almost with only this as accompaniment, a slow, plodding piece with guitar snapping in around the edges. Yeah but this track is definitely held together and driven entirely by that bass line.

"Solicitor in Studio" (sounds like problems with copyright infringement) changes that up, handing over the lead to the man on the guitar, as the bass takes very much a backseat, and whereas the previous track was slow and brooding, this is more uptempo and almost breezy in a way. Smith doesn't sing (but then, you wouldn't expect that would you?) but he does lift his voice in more of what I suppose you might call an almost half-croon, shaping the words with a view towards lyricism rather than just northern poetry, or however it's normally described. I'd say this is quite catchy too, though I have a problem understanding what he says; to me it sounds like "Tyrannosaur".

I'm not sure if Smith was making a point here, sort of like Lou Reed hating the fact that "Walk on the Wild Side" had become a hit, and in the wake of the success of the previous Fall album, was trying to deliberately hash it up for the next one. If so, I don't think he succeeded, and this is not, to me, as chaotic a mess as some reviewers would have you think. In fact, I don't see a whole lot of difference between this and Hex Enduction Hour. The closer is his shot at the Pope - banal perhaps, but "Papal Visit" opens with what sounds like a violin tuning up, screechy, scratchy sounds and then hollow, measured drumming and a beat that puts me in mind of Waits' "Shore Leave". Smith's vocal is low and sort of menacing, and he's probably at his most raw poetic here. Pure expressionism.

Rating: 5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 7
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 7 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/Perverted_by_Language.jpg)
Title: Perverted by Language
Medium: Album
Year: 1982
General opinion: Seems the critics were sharpening their knives for this one. Indie media darlings one year, whipping-boys the next huh? Christgau moaned about "side-openers that go on so long you don't really notice your attention flagging as their momentum gives way to, well, poetry readings – roughly accompanied, as usual" while the NME believed it to be a case of the band "plodding on, going nowhere, making do". Sounds agreed, concluding it was "overall laborious and very dull indeed" though that respected music magazine Sma Shits sorry Smash Hits dithered on the fence, saying it was "the record for all times and places".
Trollheart Falls in: Good almost military style drum beat and snarky guitar, with Smith's laconic vocal clear and up in the mix and we're off with "Eat Y'self Fitter", pretty repetitive though with atypical breaks where the title is chorused by the rest of the band in a short of group shout. Are those flutes? Surely not. Let's check. No I don't see any. This is the first album to feature Smith's wife, Brix (Brix?) on guitar, though according to the Big W, most of the album was recorded already before she joined.

I don't know what yer man is going on about when he talks of side openers that go on so long... this is six minutes and some, hardly a fucking side-filler. They've written much longer. It's not great, but in the tradition of The Fall as I'm coming to understand it, it's a bit of fun. "Neighbourhood of Infinity" has a harder snarling guitar edge to it, faster and a good deal more serious it would seem, the vocals now somewhat drowned out by the guitar riffs. "Garden" is the longest track, nearly nine minutes, slower with a kind of tribal style of drumming and almost an Indian feel to the music. Smith's thick northern accent makes the word sound like "get down". He might also be shouting "shotgun!"

Actually I see now it's not the longest, just beaten out by the penultimate track by a few seconds. "Hotel Bloedel" has a slightly Police-esque feel to the guitar, and is it strange indeed to hear a female vocal as Brix takes lead and Mark backs her up. She can sing - whereas he really can't, and I think he would probably not have a problem admitting that - so it's a very different sound. I would not, in fairness, say she's a great singer, kind of very sub-par Debbie Harry or something, but it's still interesting to hear actual singing. Mark then almost seems to do a kind of rap alongside her vocals.

There's a kind of stripped-down darkwave idea to "Smile", with Mark back on solo vocals and utilising that shriek again, or a lesser version of it, bass and guitar holding the line while the drummers seem to go mad behind them. The next track reminds me of The Alarm or Echo and the Bunnymen, or some damn thing. "I Feel Voxish" rides along a catchy guitar line and that pulsing bass, with Mark (have to call him by his first name now, to distinguish him from the old ball and chain) getting close to actual singing, and backing vocals in there too. Also some really fine organ work, which takes the song to another level. Pretty damned good now I have to say.

The longest track then, edging out "Garden" by nine seconds, is "Tempo House", grinding along nicely with heavy percussion and the bass right up front leading the melody, some keyboard runs colouring the edges from time to time, and we end on "Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot" (I don't know if this is an amalgamation of two tracks or just one with two titles; SGR I'm sure will be able to advise me) which snaps the guitar in your face from the off, a vaguely country style to it, much slower and laid back, Mark again sort of hovering between his usual talking and a form of singing. I don't know if he's changing his style here, or if he will go back to the original form on the next album, but it's intriguing to hear.

Some more shrieking and choppy guitar brings the song to a close, and I have to say I don't see where all this hate is coming from (says the guy who hate(s)(d) The Fall!) because I really don't see this as any sort of a dip in quality, or going through the motions. If anything, the addition of Brix Smith changes the band and, in my extremely uninformed and limited view anyway, gives it a shot in the arm that maybe it needed. I don't have a problem with any of this, and I wonder if it was a case merely of the music press wanting to turn and savage the ones they had championed, for whatever reason, possibly because they had ceased to be underground and had gained national popularity? After all, so my friends at Wiki say, this got to number one. In the Independent Charts of course, but that's still stepping about as close to the mainstream as a band like The Fall can.

Rating: 6/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 8
Current score: Trollheart 0 -8 The Fall

PBL is probably my second favorite Fall record - and Hexen Definitive/Strife Knot is probably my second favorite Fall track. Technically, it's two songs that are paired together on the album - they weren't always paired together live, for example. The separation between the two tracks becomes obvious on repeat listens, with the melancholy chord change about 4 minutes in..."it takes grace to play the second fiddle well..."

My absolute favorite version of the track comes from one of The Fall's many sessions with John Peel:


Various thoughts: I used to get high listening to this record. I'd always start the process from the beginning of the album - so while Eat Y'Self Fitter marched along, I was packing a bowl and by the time Neighbourhood Of Infinity started menacing my speaker, the bowl was kicked and I was feeling great.

Smile is, in my opinion, probably The Fall's best use of the dual-drummer attack. And it was the first song The Fall ever played on national TV, after John Peel curried favor to get them on The Tube in 1983. An important piece of Fall history for sure, and quite funny to see an audience who largely doesn't know what to make of the band or their music. :laughing:


Hotel Bloedel was of course significant for being the first Fall track with someone other than MES on lead vocals (but would be far from the last). MES and Steve Hanley actually had to goad/encourage Brix to get her to sing the track in the studio - and she rehearsed it a few times - and little did she know, one of those rehearsal takes would end up being the one included on the record. As to the meaning/context of the song, Brix wrote this in her autobiography ('The Rise, The Fall, and The Rise'), describing an experience with a strange hotel near the former concentration camp of Dachau:

QuoteWe were on our way to a gig in Holzkirchen when our van broke down outside of Dachau. When we saw the signs for Dachau, I felt my pulse rise with foreboding. Just being so near a concentration camp made me feel sick and desperately sad. I couldn't believe our van had broken down there. I began to fret, realising we had to spend the night and find a Gasthaus. We were on our own without the tour manager. We had been due to rendezvous with him in Holzkirchen. The Gasthaus we stumbled upon was called Hotel Blöedel, after the family's name who owned it.

Tempo House represents the formula that serves The Fall best throughout their lifespan - repetition and simplicity, with MES providing the flavor of his colorful and humorous lyrics:

QuotePut your claim into Tempo House
Put your claim, put your claim
I'd sing "Solitaire" for the B.E.F.
But who wants to be with them, anyway?
Snow on Easter Sunday
Jesus Christ in reverse
I tell ya, the Dutch are weeping
In four languages at least

The very humorous call-and-response chorus from Eat Y'Self Fitter is something I have fond memories of imitating and joking about with my college roommate and friend back in college. We'd be on our way back to our dorm, heading up the building steps when I'd interject: "Up the stairs, mister!", to which he'd dutifully respond: "Eat y'self fitter!" We'd of course do it a couple times on our way to our room. The people in our building probably thought we had some kind of mental troubles. :laughing:

Once again, the Fall had a few singles/b-sides at the time that were excellent, but never made it onto a studio album.



As well as one on soccer/football hooliganism, etc.


While this is the first appearance of Brix Smith on a Fall record, and this album does get attention for that, she only appears on two tracks - you made mention of her influence/effect, but you won't see that in full force until you enter the wonderful and frightening world of their next record. I have no clue why contemporary critics panned the record as the Fall being caught treading water, it doesn't make much sense to me (though I'm happy it's gotten its dues retrospectively) - it's very much a transitional record for them, as this was also the first record without longtime guitarist Marc Riley (who Brix would properly replace). I view this record as Hex Enduction Hour's looser, sparser brother - and I also like it even more. It's the only Fall record I've ever had framed and hanging on my wall, despite it not being my favorite Fall record. That said, I recognize its flaws too - I do think Fitter is a strange track to open the record with - Hotel Bloedel is a little bit uninteresting/slapdash (in terms of sound) compared to the rest, and - one last gripe, though you wouldn't really know it, there's no proper studio recording of Tempo House - the one featured on the record is a live recording from a show at the Hacienda.

Warning for the next record: I don't know if you're sticking strictly to the tracklist of the original LPs or not - but if not, the cassette version included 6 or 7 additional songs (mostly from the Call For Escape Route EP) that make the record even more enjoyable - the very short original LP (only 9 tracks) pales in comparison and doesn't present the full breadth of the band or their vision at the time in my opinion - I'm also perhaps biased because the same tracklist used for the cassette was used for the first CD release of the album, and that's what I grew up with. Anyways, just know that if you're looking at a playlist/tracklist with 9 tracks, that's the very first original LP, while if you're looking at a playlist/tracklist with 16 tracks (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mP_1m0Idl0IdORJlewJ-H1zqLr64uMVl0), that's the version of the record that's been released over and over since the 1988 CD edition.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/71/The_Wonderful_and_Frightening_World_of_The_Fall.jpg)
Title: (Escape Route from) The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall
Medium: Cassette tape
Year: 1984
General opinion: Looks like the music press were back on the band's side. NME said "They have their own world, which still has wonder and fright in it, and every time they play, the doors to it swing open." Sounds opined that  "The preferred line of attack remains insidious subversion, Mr. Smith's nasal nastiness doing its worst over that deceptively straightforward backing", and also suggested - surely with tongue wedged firmly in cheek, that it would be "the ideal Christmas gift". Trouser Press went further, believing it to be  "easily one of the band's best records" and Pitchfork characterised the songs as "bouncy and insane ... Sex Pistols- meets- Plastic Bertrand new-waviness" to "refreshing pop rock"
Trollheart Falls in: I think it's correct to say this appears to have been the first Fall album to enter the actual charts, not the independent ones, where they had already made their mark, even topping that chart. But though it performed poorly, at least it gave them a toehold in what is, after all, the only chart that really matters. Apparently, the original album labelled one side "Frightening" and one "Wonderful", so it is to the first I go to begin, or rather, continue, my journey through this wild landscape of shouted and sneered lyrics and often inescapably catchy tuneage. And we kick off with "Lay of the Land", with a dark, doomy guitar before what I recognise as the chant of the hippies from the old movie Quatermass/i] comes through in a spooky reminder of how scary I found that film to be, then it breaks out into an energetic rock tune, with our man coming close to singing. It's a fun song, and followed by "2x4" with another boppy guitar riff running it, MES getting into that shrieking thing he does that tends to annoy me so much, I think though I can hear Brix in there too? "Copped it" runs on a busy guitar line with MES just talking for some of the vocal, seeming to go sotto voce for other parts of it (or is that someone else?), very uptempo beat to this. Thought that was Brix on backing vocals but it says it's Gavin Friday, so what do I know?

"Elves." That's what I know. Now we're in my wheelhouse. Fantasy, giants, wizards, all that shit, I'm all over that. Somehow though I doubt this will be a song about little men living under toadstools or in forests, or if they are they'll be cracking bowls (or whatever the phrase is) or fucking punk nymphs or something. It's a pretty heavy song as it goes, pounding guitar hammering the melody at you, and whatever it's about I doubt it's anything you'd read to your kids at bedtime. If you have kids.

My favourite bass player is back for "Oh! Brother!" as the percussion drives the beat along in a sort of cheerful way, sounds like they may be using the kazoos again maybe, MES coming possibly the closest I've heard to him singing, and a very catchy guitar riff too, while "Draygo's Guilt" has himself back talking the lyric, a kind of mix of upfront guitar and muddied proto-metal in it. Doesn't seem to be that much to this one. "God Box" has talking and feedback before it seems to leap almost into the middle of the song, where MES channels his inner Johnny Rotten to an extent, a pretty brooding, dour song it appears to me.

Much better is "Clear Off!" which has an almost pop sensibility about it, a pulsing bass and sort of swinging beat, a song you could conceivably hear on the radio or even on the dancefloor, not something you can say about most of their songs. MES is again doing his best to sing; this would be my favourite on the album, and it closes the so-called "Frightening" side of the record, so on I progress to the "Wonderful" side and it opens on "C.R.E.E.P", which again is very commercial and poppy, a decent effort by MES to sing here too, with female backing vox presumably provided by the old lady. "Pat-Trip Dispenser" may have banjo on it, and is a slower, more Fallesque song if you will, with some sort of unnerving guitar while "Slang King" has a more rocky guitar line and bounces along nicely with some pretty sweet keyboard runs too, nice to hear it.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure but I think they've thrown in the main riff from "Satisfaction" here. Cheeky, if so. A nice walking bass line drives "Bug Day", with I think more keys? Not sure. Very dub, it says here. I wouldn't know. But I feel it has a certain slow reggae rhythm (is there any other kind of reggae rhythm?) running through it. Of course, as usual I have problems with MES's accent and instead it sounds like he's singing "Fuck day". Maybe he is. "Stephen Song" sounds like some sort of thing you might sing around the campfire - if you were fans of The Fall. Very fast guitar riff but not an aggressive one, and "Craigness" is pure country really, ambling along with a stalk of straw in its mouth and, possibly, a bloodstained axe slung over its shoulder, whistling a tuneless tune. No, I do not need help.

Apparently based on a real-life accident which is pretty horrifying to read about, "Disney's Dream Debased" is deceptively upbeat, with what sounds like brass and MES actually singing against a clanging ringing guitar riff, sort of like a northern Bowie or something. Maybe. The album ends then on the almost eight-minute "No Bulbs", where they sound kind of like The Clash mixed with Sham 69. I know, I need to lie down after that. Can someone evict this guy drilling holes inside my head please?

I can see why this got into the main charts, because it's certainly the most commercial The Fall have been up to now, and some of these songs would not be out of place on a show like Top of the Pops. I would have to take issue with the title of the album though: wonderful? Yeah, probably. Frightening? Not a bit of it. Take more that that to frighten me! Oh my god! What was that? That! Over there in the corner!

Rating: 7/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 9
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 9 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/69/This_Nation%27s_Saving_Grace.jpg)
Title: This Nation's Saving Grace
Medium: Album
Year: 1985
General opinion: Hah! Even The Guardian liked it! Said they were  "operating just on the edge of the mainstream and at the peak of their accessibility and yet strangeness". The usual suspects agreed. NME said it was "one of their most accessible LPs yet" which was yet "infinitely more peculiar than almost anything else released this year". Sounds waxed lyrical about it: "Oh, to be thirteen again and have this be the first record one heard" although Cashbox didn't like it, saying "This is post wave rock 'n' roll for the depressed teenager."
Trollheart Falls in: Another sort of distorted guitar intro as the short (and presumably instrumental; their first?) "Mansion" opens proceedings, and I think this is the first song Brix writes on her own? Really more an instrumental introduction to the album, then MES starts talking about his "Bombast" as the guitars get much more rocky and upfront, and he's back shrieking with the best of them. It's okay, but nothing much to write home about, personally is my opinion. Better is "Barmy", with a great guitar riff and MES trying again to sing and to be fair not doing too bad a job of it. The track is a little long though, for what it is.

There's a great strolling guitar line to "What You Need", a throaty bass that has to be heard to be believed, and Smith back to calling out his lyrics. Very catchy melody, and you can certainly see how The Fall were evolving, progressing from almost disjointed backing for shouted street-corner poetry (manic street preachers, indeed) to recognisable music and even - dare I say it? - commercial songs. It's followed by "Spoilt Victorian Child", which rattles guitar riffs all over the place and has MES calling out the lyric at quite a pace. Decent guitar solo and it even has a sort of middle-eighth in it. "L.A." sounds like someone shaking up a box of cornflakes or something, then a bouncing guitar riff takes it with actual singing, which may be Brix, and a kind of echoing vocal. Weird but very good.

Rolling percussion and a sort of double spoken vocal bring in "Gut of the Quantifier", then the guitar gets going properly, the song stomping along arrogantly, while "My New House" is one of only two to be written by MES solo (and, oddly, is exactly the same length as the song before it) and bops along at a fine pace on a breezy guitar. Again, there's not much in it, just him bragging about his new house, but sure, that's MES I guess. "Paint Work" has a catchy melody, but the vocal is really low and almost accidental, as if he's just talking to someone in the background. Think I hear an organ in there too. Totally abrupt ending though.

MES breaks out the violin, believe it or not, for "I am Damo Suzuki", which has a very heavy, ominous, oppressive feel to it, a slow, kind of creeping guitar allied to faster, popping percussion and it speeds up near the end, getting quite rushed and frenetic, building, one would assume, to a climax. One would be wrong. It just faded out. And then we have a reprise of the opening guitar instrumental, a sort of bookending of the album, though this one has lyrics, and the odd title "To NK Roachment: Yarbles." Right.

Certainly some more commercial music here, but retaining The Fall's unique approach to songwriting and still, well, still really weird in places. But I guess good weird.

Rating: 7/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 10
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 10 The Fall (I may as well just give up now, huh?)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4c/Bend_Sinister.jpg)
Title: Bend Sinister
Medium: Album
Year: 1986
General opinion: Oh dear. We're back Fall-ing short (sorry) of the music reviewers' praise. Trouser Press said it was "a rather gloomy, dark-sounding record", NME called it a "distinctly down affair" and Al Spicer in his Rough Guide to Rock pronounced it "not a great album by Fall standards". Apparently, even the man himself was not too happy with the album. Where does that leave me, I wonder? Well, let me just once more climb up on this ledge and lose my balance as
Trollheart Falls in: Sounds like the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" as well as Nick Cave's "Lovely Creature" as "R.O.D." begins, then it kicks up on what's a more upbeat sound than I would have expected, given the above comments. But then, perhaps they're referring to the lyrical content, which generally more or less passes me by, so maybe it won't be so bad for me. Or maybe it will. A decent start with some good guitar, then it's a bit more of a sparse backing for "Dktr. Faustus", with backing vocals from Brix as MES rants in the background, the same guitar riff pretty much over and over again, but it suits the song. Oh right, now it's changed. That's cool.

Kind of an almost hippy idea about this, probably the chant by Brix, the "yeah-eah-eah", and the guitar and possibly keys (not sure) get pretty moody and ominous, then "Shoulder Pads #1" literally whistles along on I assume keyboards, very breezy and catchy, with MES doing a sort of half version of singing, "Mr. Pharmacist" is more in your face, very aggressive in comparison with a sort of punk guitar riff driving it and a sense of desperation in the lyric, and "Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers" is a bit too muddy for my tastes but does drive along very powerfully in a dark kind of way. Goes on a bit too long though.

"Living Too Late" kicks off with a fine strolling rock riff, with what sounds like keyboard backing, MES trying to sing rather than talk, and doing a half-decent job of it. I like the way it ambles along and doesn't outstay its welcome, like the previous track. "US 80s-90s" opens with punching percussion and then snarls in on a sharp guitar riff, a very sneered vocal here I believe, while the next one just pops in for a quick pint, a minute and a half and it's gone, which sets us up for two longer ones.

"Bournemouth Runner" comes in on a slow, dead bass line that Geezer Butler would be hard pressed to imitate, seriously doomy. Man. I guess this is where the album is seen to get dark, but then it changes entirely, kicking into a high-tempo guitar riff with what sounds like harmonica and rocks like a good thing. Hmm. It seems I've been tricked into getting the playlist for the cassette version, which has 2 more tracks than the album/CD version, so I'll keep going with it. There is, however, a live version of a previous track on it at the end which I'll ignore, as I've heard it before. This one could be my favourite on the album so far. Not really seeing this "cold, dark, down" idea that all these so-called reviewers are saying is the theme of the album, not at all.

"Riddler!" has a very hollow and slightly ominous guitar riff opening it, measured drumming and I think a kind of moaning synth possibly? Whistling brings back "Shoulder Pads #2", seems to be a reprise, then "Auto-Tech Pilot" features a bass line that speeds up as the song goes along, then slowly comes back down in speed and ends on an interesting little piano run.

Again, I don't agree with the critics. There's nothing dark or down or sad about this album. It's just a continuation of their evolution from post-punk underground band to almost mainstream post-punk pop band. Nothing wrong with that, and I find most of this to be pretty upbeat. It has its moments of melancholy, sure, but as I say, unless the depressive element lies in the lyrics, I'm stumped. I enjoyed this a lot.

Rating: 7.8/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 0
The Fall: 11
Current score: Trollheart 0 - 11 The Fall

Happy to see that Bend Sinister seems to be your most liked record so far Trolls! It's actually my favorite Fall record. And "Gross Chapel - British Grenadiers" is actually my all-time favorite Fall track. Once again, the Peel session of the track is immaculate.


I guess I agree with critics more than you do in the sense that I believe it's the most dour, brooding, and ominous Fall album - I don't view it as depressing exactly, but it's certainly not a happy or jubilant record. There's actually a really well known story among Fall fans that the producer (John Leckie) actually accidentally mastered the album a tick or two slower than was intended, which resulted in a bit of this feeling - that was the reason for MES's displeasure with it.

I have very distinct memories of walking around my college campus at night, specifically around the time I was going to co-host my radio show with my roommate around 11pm on chilly cold dark Friday evenings (until 1am), listening to this record, and smoking cheap cigarettes as the campus lamp-posts guided my way to the building. I'd sneak booze into the campus building to get slightly plastered while we hosted the show. And then the cigarettes on the way back to my dorm after, also listening to this record, hit like...well, it hit like a brick.

And goddamn, does the cassette track-list make it perfect - I can't even imagine this album NOT ending with "Auto Tech Pilot" - if I grew up with the original LP (without that track), I don't think this would clear the edge as my favorite Fall record, but since I did, here we are. And goddamn, you can count me as surprised a few years ago when I heard the fucking sample of this track in experimental hip-hop group Injury Reserve's track "SS San Francisco" - I think even the Trollheart himself could appreciate how simply and directly this sample was lifted.  ;)

Meh, I maintain that it's not in any way a dour or sad record. Even that ultra-doomy bass on "Bournemouth Runner" goes uptempo and the song takes off. I don't get it. I read that MES had some issue about production, wanting it to be like the cassette he was listening to on his Walkman. Actually I think the production is okay, better than most Fall albums.

Listen to the words coming out of my mouth which I never expected to utter! You'd think I was an expert on the band! Well, never, but I'm getting to know them better, and they're not at all what I thought they were/remembered them as.

Question on the Peel Sessions: are these just new versions of old songs, or different tracks altogether? I already have something like 30 albums to do (about a third of the way through I think) and that doesn't include EPs, so I'd rather just do EPs, if at all, that are completely new material.

Thanks for your comments, and glad you're enjoying it. I'm not sure whether I'll finish it, with Christmas coming up, especially if I head out to my sister's, but I'll do it up to Christmas Eve anyway, which means another thirteen albums at least. I just don't want to go outside the month limit, so one way or another I'll be done with The Fall by December 31 at the latest. I'm also doing a few other projects, so the chances of getting to review more than one album a day are slim. But at least I have a basic grounding in their music now, of sorts anyway.

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 11, 2024, 03:04 PMMeh, I maintain that it's not in any way a dour or sad record. Even that ultra-doomy bass on "Bournemouth Runner" goes uptempo and the song takes off. I don't get it. I read that MES had some issue about production, wanting it to be like the cassette he was listening to on his Walkman. Actually I think the production is okay, better than most Fall albums.

Listen to the words coming out of my mouth which I never expected to utter! You'd think I was an expert on the band! Well, never, but I'm getting to know them better, and they're not at all what I thought they were/remembered them as.

Question on the Peel Sessions: are these just new versions of old songs, or different tracks altogether? I already have something like 30 albums to do (about a third of the way through I think) and that doesn't include EPs, so I'd rather just do EPs, if at all, that are completely new material.

Thanks for your comments, and glad you're enjoying it. I'm not sure whether I'll finish it, with Christmas coming up, especially if I head out to my sister's, but I'll do it up to Christmas Eve anyway, which means another thirteen albums at least. I just don't want to go outside the month limit, so one way or another I'll be done with The Fall by December 31 at the latest. I'm also doing a few other projects, so the chances of getting to review more than one album a day are slim. But at least I have a basic grounding in their music now, of sorts anyway.

Oh yeah, I love the production as it is - this was John Leckie's last album as producer for The Fall (he did this one and the prior two, and it would appear he had just about had it with good ol' MES).

But in terms of perceptions of it being a more somber affair for The Fall, it obviously comes down to subjective interpretation I suppose. Part of the work may be getting done by the ghostly black and white album cover with the somewhat ominous title (which is actually a reference to a Vladimir Nabokov novel of the same name).

Some of the lyrical themes are also rather gloomy.

Surrealist horror:

QuoteIt's approaching
600 pounds gas and flesh
Robes in tatters
It's approaching
Lips and tongue abhorrent

Military funerals:

QuoteThen let us fill a bumper,
And drink a health to those
Who carry caps and pouches,
And wear the louped clothes.
May they and their commanders
Live happy in their scaly years

Whene'er we are commanded
To storm the palisades
Our leaders march with fusees,
And we with hand grenades
We throw them from glacis,
About the enemies' ears
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row,
For the British Grenadiers

Facing our own mortality:

QuoteSometimes life is like a new bar
Plastic seats, beer below par
Food with no taste, music grates
I'm living too late
Once talking was my favourite while
But now I know a conversation's end
Before it's done
Maybe I'm living too long
The daylight
I see trouble on the streets
Fearing catastrophe to meet
Walk down the devil's boulevard
But still my heart is hard

And of course, the invocation of Faustian bargains.

Somewhat humorous aside, there's been a long-standing rumour that Miles Davis heard "Auto-Tech Pilot" and that after hearing it, he wanted to work with The Fall. This strange rumour has persisted throughout the years, even though its origin is in a humor/comedy column run by NME in 1986. Given Miles Davis exploratory nature, and his undying love for certain unorthodox (for a jazz man) music like the Beastie Boys second album (Paul's Boutique), which he claimed he never got sick of listening to, it didn't feel like it would be that hard to believe it was true.

I had predicted before you started the project that the band would actually grow on you and you'd appreciate them, and I'm happy to see that being the case. It wouldn't be much fun for anyone if doing this was the equivalent of torture for you. :)

John Peel, famous british radio jockey, would often bring artists he liked in to record sessions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Peel_Sessions) of their songs for John to play on his radio show - they often exhibited a rawer side of the artist without the additional studio trickery - The Fall being his favorite band came in to record 24 different sessions up until the point Peel passed away in 2004. I like to include them in some of my responses not as a way to nudge you to listen to them or anything, but as enrichment and reference points for anyone who might browse this thread in the future. :)

Thanks again for doing this project Trolls, I've very much enjoyed reading your thoughts on it, and hope that you can at least get through their 90s albums - their sound takes a pretty diverse and interesting turn in that era with the use of electronics/keyboards, and it's the era of the band I usually find myself returning to the most these days.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/dc/The_Frenz_Experiment.jpg)
Title: The Frenz Experiment
Medium: Album
Year: 1988
General opinion: Pitchfork didn't like it, calling it  "a bit of a mixed bag. On no other record than the weak 1994 effort Middle Class Revolt do they sound more like they're on autopilot.". That's all I got. Hey, if th eForks hate it, it must be good, right?
Trollheart Falls in: Right. From now on, I'm sticking to the "basic" album. I mean, Bend Sinister was good with the extra tracks and all, but time is running out for me as we hurtle uncontrollably and unstoppably towards the birth of Santa, and I want to try to do as many of these as I can in December. Leave it to the ones who can't stay upright too long to release an album on the one day that only occurs once every four years! If they could, I bet they would have released one on April 31st.

A slow, laconic, almost sixties-derived beat with a lazy plodding bass opens what I guess you'd call the title track, "Frenz", with some nice keyboard backing and MES definitely coming closer now to singing than just talking. "Carry Bag Man" opens with the sound, it seems, of a drill or a whistle, and a vocal harmony-style chant before the guitar hammers into the track and it takes better shape. I wouldn't say necessarily the days of talking the lyric are gone, but Smithy seems to be more heading in a semi-singing direction these days.

There's a rolling soft percussion and bass to take us into "Get a Hotel", which then trips along on a pretty infectious guitar rhythm, the drums getting a little frenetic for a few moments before settling down again, and "Victoria" is a cover of a Kinks song. I don't like the Kinks. At all. Interesting though to hear MES actually sing - can't talk this one, son. Ah it's as ordinary as I thought it would be. Sell-out! Sell-out! Or something. Give me original music. Who needs cover versions? Boo. "Athlete Cured" sounds like what the discerning cannibal would have on his dinner table, but it gives MES a chance to go back to talking the lyric again, and has a busy rhythm line running through it. Oh, and a few shrieks, sure why not? But what the hell are they talking about, comparing it to the song by Spinal Tap? Nothing like it. What are they smoking, these guys?

Very thick bass line on "In These Times" and then it takes off as a real rocky bouncy uptempo number with sort of backing vocals from the band; not sure if they're making a point by slagging off someone here, but it sort of sounds like it. Sounds like someone's playing a trumpet, though I doubt anyone is. A strolling, swinging style then to "Steak Place", which to me sounds rather like the Troggs' "Wild Thing", and nobody fucking remarks on that, do they? "Bremen Nacht" sounds like something out of a sixties spy movie or something, lot of stuttering guitar and crashing drums, MES back to talking the lyric, and is another example of The Fall stretching an already thin idea thinner than a starship caught in the gravitational grip of a black hole. I mean, it's just the fucking same all the way through for seven god-damned minutes! Come on Mark for fuck's sake! "Guest Informant" is the polar opposite, a few seconds of percussion and the two Smiths shouting the same line for about forty seconds and we end on "Oswald Defence Lawyer" (clever: Oswald got no defence, no trial - he was killed before he could get to court) which is a slow, plodding track with the band shouting the chorus, such as it is, and some pretty hard guitar cutting through, but I would have to say the last half of this album really dipped badly, and it's the first I'm giving a lower rating to then I have been up to now. Thus far, it's been increasing ratings, but this is going right down. Didn't like this much.

Rating: 4/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 1
The Fall: 11
Current score: Trollheart 1 - 11 The Fall (finally scored!)

It's funny, I listened to The Frenz Experiment constantly at one point while I was in college. I remember many car rides in which I was driving with my wife, along with my roommate and his girlfriend (we all lived together for a time...in a small dorm room meant for two guys with a bunk bed), and I remember torturing them with "Bremen Nacht". It would go on and on and on. I still love the track (while my wife and the others hated it). Though my wife despises the track, all I need to do is start humming it for her to recognize it - one of the perks of jackhammer-like Fall repetition I suppose.  :laughing: That being said, I rarely reach for the record these days.

Looking at the original LP tracklist, goddamn - that is definitely the weakest Fall record you've covered thus far. I respect not bothering with the expanded CD editions in the interest of time, but I will say that this record (and the next record) represent The Fall at perhaps their most poppy and glamorous (in both musical aesthetic and appearance). To who's credit? With another woman in the band (Marcia Schofield), I think her and Brix were able to get the boys to stop dressing like they were art school students headed for a night at the pub and start dressing like a proper fuckin' rock band.

(https://blackcountryrock.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ea7099821f47deba68cff2e706de2783.jpg?w=800)

(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/obituaries/2018/01/25/152396997_Premium-ArchiveBRIXTHIS_Fall-Trio_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqqVzuuqpFlyLIwiB6NTmJwfSVWeZ_vEN7c6bHu2jJnT8.jpg?imwidth=350)

In Brix Smith's autobiography, she did make several mentions of how much she enjoyed having another woman in the band, though I can't be bothered to go digging for the quotes.

You mentioned the "Victoria" cover, but it's really the R. Dean Taylor cover of "There's a Ghost In My House" that commands attention on the CD version of the album. They actually recorded a music video for it, and Mark looks about as healthy and put together as he ever did and Brix (in the role of the ghost) looks great too.


And who could forget the joyous krautrock stomp of "Hit The North", accompanied with one of the best Fall music videos for my money:


How Brix managed to convince Mark to dress up like British royalty for the music video of "Victoria", I'll never know either.


Perhaps the greatest crime of The Frenz Experiment is that they decided to include duds like "In These Times" and "Oswald Defence Lawyer" over some excellent tracks like "Twister" which only found their way to the CD version:


And the original LP included a small excerpt of "Guest Informant", while the full version of the track only appeared on the CD version (along with the excerpt, for whatever god-forsaken reason):


It's very unfortunate with this record - as with the original LP, many of the best tracks were left off entirely, whereas with the CD version, you get everything, but there's too much fluff and the record in that form is simply too long. Amongst the bits, there's an excellent record in here, but you'll not find it with any official version of the record.

Brix had her own thoughts on the record from her biography - the only thing I really disagree about is "Get A Hotel", which I love to bits:

Quote"'Carry Bag Man' is fine, and chugs along, but is a phoned-in effort from Mark, a song about how he likes to carry plastic bags.  'Get a Hotel' is just annoying.  'The Steak Place' is boring and conjures images of gross food, the kind of restaurant that might have photos of the food on their menu.  The most annoying song I ever had to play on was 'Oswald Defence Lawyer.'  I think it was the worst song we'd done since I'd joined the band.  It was interminable, and when we played it live I watched the audience switch off.  It makes me cringe today, just thinking about it.  I was expected to really belt it out, but it just sounds irritating and grating: 'Oswald Defense Lawyer embraces the scruffed corpse of Mark Twain.'  It was cool to name-check Twain, though." (238-239)

I get what you're saying about potentially choosing the wrong version of the album, but I do have to ask: why so many god-damn versions? Looking for playlist on YT is slightly akin to pointing a loaded revolver at your head, unaware of how many bullets are in the chamber. You just don't know what you'll end up with, and I've been describing a certain track only to realise it's another, different one, and that the track listing on this particular playlist is not what I've been reading off Wiki, not what I think I'm working with. Other bands have extra tracks, sure, but they don't have six different versions of every album! It's very disorienting. Also annoying.

I will say that I noted (but forgot to write down, as I was somewhat drained by the album and honestly just wanted to be done with it) that the cover is the first "real" one they've done, i.e., one you might see in a record shop and not run screaming away from. So if, as you say, the band image changed (I will admit, that girl on the keyboards - oh mamma! I watched a few Fall videos just to see her!) then perhaps their whole music aesthetic did too. I'm both chuffed and annoyed at the same time that my "score" is now no longer zero, as it was going so well, but how will the next few albums fare? Guess I'll find out soon. But yeah, that was the first one I really did not enjoy listening to, never mind reviewing.

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 12, 2024, 11:11 PMI get what you're saying about potentially choosing the wrong version of the album, but I do have to ask: why so many god-damn versions? Looking for playlist on YT is slightly akin to pointing a loaded revolver at your head, unaware of how many bullets are in the chamber. You just don't know what you'll end up with, and I've been describing a certain track only to realise it's another, different one, and that the track listing on this particular playlist is not what I've been reading off Wiki, not what I think I'm working with. Other bands have extra tracks, sure, but they don't have six different versions of every album! It's very disorienting. Also annoying.

I will say that I noted (but forgot to write down, as I was somewhat drained by the album and honestly just wanted to be done with it) that the cover is the first "real" one they've done, i.e., one you might see in a record shop and not run screaming away from. So if, as you say, the band image changed (I will admit, that girl on the keyboards - oh mamma! I watched a few Fall videos just to see her!) then perhaps their whole music aesthetic did too. I'm both chuffed and annoyed at the same time that my "score" is now no longer zero, as it was going so well, but how will the next few albums fare? Guess I'll find out soon. But yeah, that was the first one I really did not enjoy listening to, never mind reviewing.

Yeah I don't know honestly why their mid/late 80s records had so many fuckin' versions, it's honestly annoying. I don't hold it against you, someone who's going in cold and trying to cover as much of their material as you can, to be ultra-aware of this stuff. You could say The Fall have reaped what they've sowed.

You'll be glad to know Marcia hangs around for the next two studio records (Brix only hangs around for one more). Don't worry too much about the score, because if you go through their '90s records, I feel almost inevitably there will be at least one or two that you have serious doubts about.  :laughing:

(https://www.vice.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/01/1548756598632-PK3EN9.jpeg)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/I_Am_Kurious_Oranj.jpg)
Title: I Am Kurious Oranj
Medium: Album
Year: 1988
General opinion: NME gushed that the band "retained the power to surprise, to provoke and occasionally outrage that only The Smiths could pretend to possess in the '80s." but Allmuisc weren't so sure, suggesting that "As a cohesive Fall album it fails [...] I Am Kurious Oranj would have been more interesting to see than hear."
Trollheart Falls in: You know, I always have a bit of a problem with albums based on operas. I'm not mad about Waits' Franks Wild Years, and Roger Waters can stick Ca Ira where the sun doesn't shine, and I don't mean the dark side of the moon. This is, apparently, music written for a ballet, not an opera (but same difference, to me anyway) and coming off the back of The Frenz Experiment, for me an experiment that failed, it's probably not too surprising that I'm less than sanguine about the prospect of this album getting me back to where I want to be. Oh, here we fucking go again: this does NOT help. Oranj featured a different track listing across the various formats on which it was originally released. In addition to extra tracks "Guide Me Soft" and "Big New Priest", the UK CD featured several alternative and extended versions of songs (tracks 3, 5, 7, 8 and 12). In 2013, Beggars remastered and reissued the album on CD as a part of the 5 Albums box set; the new edition used the CD mixes sequenced according to the vinyl track order, with extra tracks and alternate vinyl mixes added as bonus tracks. I mean, it's hard enough choosing the right playlist without them banging nineteen different mixes of the fucking thing at me. Are they trying to make me call off this project?

Fuck on a bike. Which one do I choose? Well, usually I go for the "original LP" version, not only because I come from a time when vinyl ruled (a compact what? Yer 'avin' a larf, mate!) but simply because it's usually the first one shown on the page. Sigh. Let's see. Right: eleven tracks on the original LP. Let's see if I can find that. Hell on toast. This is hard enough as it is. Don't need roadblocks being thrown in my way as I hurtle down the highway to Hex here!

Well, speaking of Waits, MES sounds a bit like him, and so does the music, to an extent, as "New Big Prinz" gets us going. Now I know I've either heard this before, or they're reusing old melodies. Very deja vu, Mister Smith. Sort of a stomping beat, with MES shouting perhaps "Change (or check) the record!" Oh I see: it's based on "Hip Priest" from the Hex Enduction Hour album. I knew I had heard it before.  I don't know if it's that familiarity, but I immediately like it more than the previous album. Let's see if that holds as we move on to "Overture from I Am Curious Orange", which sounds like it should be an instrumental? I'm told Brix wrote a lot of this but due to their impending marriage breakup she wasn't credited. How childish of you, Mark!

Well the guitar here is great; more like something out of a metal or AOR song really, very full and solid, and while MES is throwing in lyrics I think in general it could be - well no it can't, can it? He won't shut up. Never heard of an overture with words before, but there you go: that's the wonderful and frightening, and occasionally just plumb crazy world of The Fall. Like this too. I can't believe the "Blake" credited on "Dog is Life/Jerusalem" is that Blake? And if it is, do I assume they're using the old hymn? Surely not. Well the first part is just MES talking about dogs, which isn't at all interesting, especially as he seems to be talking through a bullhorn (bulldog horn? Sorry) and there are barking sounds too. Is he barking mad? I shall leave that to be decided by minds immeasurably superior to mine, i.e., every other one.

Crap. This is meant to run for 7 minutes, which is long enough, but the playlist version is almost 9! Angels and ministers of grace etc. Oh yeah, it sounds like he's doing his own version indeed of "Jerusalem". Well. Not too sure what to say about that. "Kurious Oranj" is, like most Fall songs I'd have to say, pretty repetitive, with a looping guitar riff in an almost Caribbean style (I've been working too hard), some odd sounds - presumably made on the keys - that remind me of when I used to have to dial-up to get online. "Wrong Place, Right Time" is a bit of a confused mess honestly, with a parping guitar line and MES just kind of shouting the lyric out, though curiously (!) in sort of rhythm with the melody, such as it is. Odd one. That sounds like a busy synth line in "Win Fall CD 2080", almost a bastard new-wave feel to the song, like the kind of track that goes to the trendy clubs but gets told to fuck off, nobody wants its type here. Neither fish nor Fall? Sorry again.

I don't know if that's the new keyboard player's doing, but if so she's certainly shaping and changing the sound of the band, at least on this track. You can almost hear the outraged trapped ghost of Marc Almond in the music, like a damned soul caught forever in bubbling keyboard runs. That comfortable dependable bass line is back for "Yes, O Yes" with again a sense of sixties cop shows in it, also adding to this seems to be the sound of a siren in the background? "Van Plague?" seems to be more of what I would, at this point, and with my very limited understanding of them, call a "normal" Fall song, reasonably straight-forward, with a good melody and MES singing a bit more, "Bad News Girl" walks in on super-high heels strumming that menacing bass and dares anyone to make a comment on what she's wearing, a sneer and a smear of lipstick twisting her mouth. MES is using that megaphone he got for his birthday again, and someone is playing a xylophone, or the skeleton of a music critic who gave them a bad review, either is good.

There's even some sort of mad quasi-Pan Pipes thing going on, which is tres weird and twists everything up till I don't know my name or where I live anymore. Oh and now it's kicked into some sort of uptempo poppy ska tune or something, so different that I thought the next (last) track had started. As some blonde girl said once, curiouser and curiouser. The closing track, "Cab it Up!" starts off as a hard rocker and then gets peppered with synth licks and I'd like her to lick me sorry best if you forget you read that. Very poppy against a more rock and roll guitar, sort of hard to work out what it's meant to be. Still much better than the last album, not that that would be hard. We're back on track.

Rating: 7.7/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 1
The Fall: 12
Current score: Trollheart 1 - 12 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/45/Extricate_big.jpg)
Title: Extricate
Medium: Album
Year: 1990
General opinion: For once, I don't know, as there is no reaction shown. Oh no wait: further down Melody Maker praised it as "their finest yet" and NME gave it 10/10. Guess they liked it then.
Trollheart Falls in: I believe this then is the first album without Brix, shortly after she and Mark split up, and it's said (though I don't know) that she took with her all the commercial, poppy tunes and sensibilities, and that the band got back to being more of an alternative, post-punk one than they had been on the last few albums. Bad news (girl) for me, possibly. Certainly doesn't seem like MES is sad about the breakup, with the opening track called "Sing! Happy!" and seeming to feature him on violin. Ah no, "Sing! Harpy!!" is the title. Guess that makes more sense. Okay no, not him on the violin, seems to be some guy called Kenny Brady. A big hard thumping guitar and powerful percussion then with possible feedback effects, and he's back to talking the lyric.

Despite the title, perhaps predictably, the song seems dark and menacing, so maybe read between the lines? Or, you know, read them, but I ain't got time for that. I'm a busy man! I have other artists to sneer at. I wonder if the album title refers to his, as he sees it, extricating himself from the marriage? "I'm Frank" retains the poppy side of The Fall Brix was encouraging, much better, high uptempo keys and guitar and MES almost singing. I've actually heard "Bill is Dead" - think SGR you had it in a playlist? It's actually a good enough song, the lyric delivered in a bored, laconic style, but still more in the "pop" than "punk" camp here, if you divide Fall songs up into those two categories. Also a ballad, which is unusual for them. Love the keyboard melody here. Sad to see yer wan was sacked after this album; she doesn't seem to have been that long with the band then.

Next is another bloody cover, "Black Monk Theme Part II" (what happened to part I? Who knows?) which features a very sixties-style organ riff, the lyric changing from love to hate, and I can't really say much about it, as I don't know the band who wrote and played it originally, the Monks, so we move on to, um, another cover, "Popcorn, Double Feature", on which MES does again show he can sing when he wants to, but given that neither of these are original Fall songs they're only of passing interest to me. "Telephone Thing" sounds like it could be yet another, but no, it's their own. Very dancy, club-like song with rumbling bass and howling synths. MES is more or less talking the lyric here, but it kind of works. I see comparisons being drawn here between bands like The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, and yeah, I have to admit I haven't a fucking clue as I've never heard either of those bands. It is something of an evolution in their sound though.

Much more straight-forward is "Hilary", a simple rock tune with some nice female backing vocals, MES doing some half-singing, not much in the way of keys here though, while "Chicago, Now!" has... an oboe? A fucking oboe? Like, those things wot them blokes uses in ork-ees-tras? Really? Seems so. I'm not sure what it adds to the tune really, but I suppose it's a talking point. Certainly is getting on my tits, I can tell you that. Doesn't seem to feel it has to stay in tune with the music. Yeah don't think much of this now to be honest.

That leaves us with "The Littlest Rebel", starting off with what sounds like a crash of piano keys, them romping along on a busy guitar line with almost trumpeting keyboard runs, like something off a baseball game or the like, and we finish on "And Therein..." which is very catchy indeed and has MES coming pretty close to singing against an upbeat guitar melody. I see a slight change here in the move away from pop, but I wouldn't say they've Fall(en) back on old habits just yet. Well, let me grab me coat before you kick me out, won't ya?

Rating: 7/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 1
The Fall: 13
Current score: Trollheart 1 - 13 The Fall

(https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/77aaffadd7104048a14277aafd96ecb4/2219750/the-fall-the-dredger-ep-Cover-Art.jpg)
Title: The Dredger
Medium: EP
Year: 1990
General opinion: Unknown
Trollheart Falls in: Only four tracks on this. Proper EP stuff. Let's go then. Oddly the EP is not available on YT so I have to go looking for tracks separately. Whether or not they'll be the versions on this EP or not I don't know. Stop saying EP. No. "White Lightning" seems to have a sort of "Summertime Blues" feel to it, fast rocker with a chorus (such as it is) that evokes Jerry Lee Lewis's "Great Balls of Fire". A harder, more stripped-down feel to "Blood Outta Stone", I like the guitar riff that runs through it, MES sort of half-shouting, half-singing the vocal, and throwing in the odd shriek here or there.

I get the feeling "Zagreb" may be an instrumental, as it's shown as being in three movements. There are, I think, some keys in there and some pretty solid guitar and - it's not an instrumental. Should have known. Can't take anything for granted with these guys. Pretty infectious melody, and the longest on the EP at six minutes, showcases the playing talent of the band, really quite excellent. It reminds me of something, and I think it may be Floyd's "One of These Days". Strange little bit at the end with vocoder and beeping keys; thought it had gone on to another track.  The EP ends then on "Life Just Bounces", which starts off with high tinkling piano notes and almost what sounds like strings, though surely is not, then takes off on a thick guitar riff which drives the song, and MES does his best to sing on this. Yeah I'd have to say I really enjoyed this. Glad I didn't miss out on it.

Rating: 7.5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 1
The Fall: 13
Current score: Trollheart 1 - 13 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bd/Shift-Work.jpg)
Title: Shift-Work
Medium: Album
Year: 1991
General opinion: Again, I think positive, though there are this time few comments, just Allmusic's contention that  "repetitious grooves became interspersed with pop song structures." and NME's simple "Quiet! Genius at work!" Says it all, dunnit?
Trollheart Falls in: I'm told this is a "happier", for want of another word, Fall album, where the vitriol is kept right back and MES even waxes lyrical about things, rather than sneering at or attacking or undermining them, but like that supergroup who changed music, Bucks Fizz, I'll make my own mind up thanks. I find a buzzier, fuzzier sound to "So What About it?" with the usual repetitive guitar line, but it settles down quickly and he does try to sing this time. Seems the female keyboard player is gone now, and so is the other guitarist, and The Fall are down to a four-piece. Do I hear a difference? Can't really say I do. I'm not particularly enamoured by this opening track, but "Idiot Joy Showland" has a sort of modern Police-style reggae beat behind it and also evokes elements of the softer side of The Clash, while "Edinburgh Man" could theoretically be on a Springsteen album, and MES does a decent job of singing here. There's no bile here at all; the song is very reflective and betrays a yearning for home, sort of. Very very impressed with this.

"Pittsville Direkt" opens with an a capella bit sort of crooned by Mark, then hammers in on some powerful rising guitar, "The Book of Lies" has a cool warbly keyboard melody running through it and is very catchy, then there's a mad fiddle in "The War Against Intelligence", our friend Kevin Brady back again to hoe-down the song up, if that's not a contradiction, and if it is, in the best tradition of MES, fuck off. He's singing here, close as he can get anyway, and seems, so far, to have abandoned the idea of just speaking the lyric, which I think is affording the songs more commercial appeal. They certainly sound, in the main, better. This one I find very The The indeed.

A big wobbling swirly keyboard intro then to the title track, with perhaps tape loops or something making a kind of scratchy sound over the music, and a slow, pounding bass line framing the melody, there's a loudhailer introduction to "You Haven't Found It Yet", but then it settles down into a pretty standard rock/pop track driven by some sweet guitar. The song also ends on that bullhorn, then a very sort of new-wave, even soul backing to "The Mixer", which almost sounds like it has a drum machine in it, but I imagine doesn't, and fiddle, which it does. More usage of the loudhailer in an almost, but not quite, Roger Waters way, while "A Lot of Wind" has a drum intro somewhat reminiscent of Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz", then rocks along nicely with a sort of staggered, rapid-fire vocal by MES, "Rose" is another very pop-styled song with piping keyboards and a nice hook in the melody, and the album ends then on "Sinister Waltz", which comes in on a sort of fairground melody with a bouncing bass and thrumming guitar, MES using that loudhailer again, but this time all the way through the song, and with an added echo effect.

If I had heard this as my first Fall album I would probably have liked them a lot more than I do, but as I've progressed through their catalogue I've watched, well, listened to them change and warp and metamorphose into a totally different band, and while I certainly love this, you'd have to say in some ways it's almost as if Mark's fangs have been pulled, and all the bitterness and snideness and sense of anger that characterised the other albums is missing here. And, kind of, missed, too.

Rating: 8.5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 1
The Fall: 15
Current score: Trollheart 1 - 15 The Fall

Haven't been able to muster a lot of input recently as I've been sick.  :(

But it's very interesting to see how much you enjoyed Shift-Work. As with many of their albums, this is one that leaves many Fall fans polarized. Some very much enjoy the change of pace - the slow burn of it all, while others who don't like it have dubbed it as Shit-Work.  :laughing:

Personally, I'm not big on the record - I'd probably give it a 6/10. I do enjoy some of the tracks, but rarely do I ever feel compelled to come back to it. It comes dangerously close to committing the most cardinal sin for a Fall record...being boring.

But, the strange shifts in directions of their sound that continue to take place throughout the '90s probably wouldn't have happened without this album, so for that, I do give it credit.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/72/Code_Selfish.jpg)
Title: Code: Selfish
Medium: Album
Year: 1992
General opinion: No idea; there is no reaction whatsoever shown
Trollheart Falls in: I do read that this was a "harsher" album than the previous, and that it embraced the techno sound more, so that may not be good for me. You can hear that right away from the beginning of "The Birmingham School of Business School" which opens with clanging bells, then thick techno beats and a very slurred vocal from MES, not so much of the guitar this time around, with synth and keys taking centre stage. I think it would be hard, were you to hear this on the radio, to recognise it as a Fall song. The vocal has cleared up a bit now, and some more guitar coming into the mix, but very clearly more a dance song than the usual kind of post-punk/rock they have been doing up to now.

I must admit, I don't see too much of a difference initially between that and "Free Range", though it does sort of shift in the middle to a more synth-based tune with less of the techno, MES back to talking the lyric, then "Return" has a sort of Depeche Mode style of percussion with blasts of guitar around the edges, and here I hear Mark doing more singing than talking. So that's not bad. "Time Enough at Last" does thankfully get back to the standard guitar backing, and sounds more like the kind of thing you expect to hear from The Fall, MES singing this time. Well, as much as he can be said to anyway. This is the first track on the album with what I could call any sort of a hook in the melody.

You've got to admire him for actually quoting the J-Man at the start of "Everything Hurtz", and it's another fast-paced, guitar-driven tune (I do hope we're past all the techno rubbish now) with MES on top form here, but no we're back with it as we head into "Immortality", where the synths again hold court, though the bass makes its presence felt for about the first time on the album. I don't know if it's meant to reference the Batman enemy, but "Two-Face!" is even worse, just a mess of synths and effects ... ah but then it clears to a nice clean steady guitar line and gets a lot better. It's like I've put on a Pogues album then when "Just Waiting" starts, with what may or may not be an accordion and a romping tempo, with MES half-slurring/half-singing the lyric, then the guitar bit is, well, odd, and seems almost out of place. Ah wait, that was a Hank Williams song. Sorry guys; don't count. It was going to be my favourite so far, (not hard, given that I haven't liked much at all on this) but no way am I making a cover my favourite. And now we're back to techno shite with "So Called Dangerous". Sigh.

There is at least a really nice piano intro to "Gentlemen's Agreement", and MES does his best to sing this. This would, however, be about the third track I've enjoyed on this, and that includes the cover. "Married, 2 Kids" is decent blues striding rock too, and the album may make an attempt to end strongly, but it's still getting a negative vote from me I'm afraid. That honky-tonk piano is cool though, no denying that. "Crew Filth" is, though, just annoying. I mean, really annoying. Terrible way to end a pretty terrible album.

Rating: 4/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 2
The Fall: 15
Current score: Trollheart 2 - 15 The Fall

One of the best things I can say for Code: Selfish, besides having one of my favorite Fall singles with "Free Range", is that it's a great album to turn on when you need to complete some tedious busy work or even when I'm programming. Doesn't make exactly for the most compelling music alone, but does work wonders as background noise to keep you driving steady.  :laughing:

KORN

.....cus i already know everything about them but do U  :P   :coldsweat:























..... wait Better yet KORN but Just there solo music JJAJAJAJAJAJ

Jonathan davis
Munky
Head
Ray
fieldy...if u cant mange it the worst :P ..cept for FD
david silveria...just Infinika ..even tho that was prob  Riz Story baby project

I'll consider it but I did say this was not a torture thread. Suppose you could have said Slipknot.

New rule: if someone suggests something to me and I take it up, I expect them to accompany me on the journey, like SGR is. Make comments, talk about what I'm listening to, give your view, encourage (or discourage) me. Don't just dump a screaming, smelly baby who has to be changed on the steps outside my church and expect me to look after it and find a home for it while you fuck off to the night club.

Anyone not agreeing to this, I don't do your rec. Fair?

Korn is one of my perennial favorite bands, I'd definitely accompany you if Norg didn't. But I only have 15 days left till I take my internet hiatus so idk. Maybe put it on the back burner for now? Your call of course.

You'll be more than welcome, hon. But it won't be till January 1 at the earliest, so plenty of time. I'm doing as close as I can to a month on each. You won't mind if I hide against your shoulder if the music is too scary?
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Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 16, 2024, 07:40 PMYou'll be more than welcome, hon. But it won't be till January 1 at the earliest, so plenty of time. I'm doing as close as I can to a month on each. You won't mind if I hide against your shoulder if the music is too scary?
(https://media.tenor.com/KcoCbieV6hIAAAAM/mr-bean-scary-movie.gif)

Alright! When I get back we can arrange it then, and my shoulder is yours for the hiding. :)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/The_Infotainment_Scan.jpg)
Title: The Infotainment Scan
Medium: Album
Year: 1993
General opinion: Allmusic called it "a winner and a half" and "one of the band's most playful yet sharp-edged releases" while The Boston Globe agreed, saying it was "10 tracks of caustic wit set to backing music that swirls one moment and grinds the next". Robert Christgau said it had a "great original sound, one hell of a cover band" (not sure if our Bob was being facetious there) while The Independent said "Smith's invective has rarely been more sharply honed" and that the band "have rarely sounded brighter" and the NME said the album  "stands at the very peak of their canon"
Trollheart Falls in: Supposedly the band's most accessible album to that point, I find it perhaps odd that it seems to open on that techno scratchy beat thingy, which continues throughout "Ladybird (Green Grass)" and is pretty annoying. MES is singing though, which is something, and the guitar is taking control, but that noise is getting on my tits. That fucker Bush again, with his thrice-damned programming. I see this got into the top ten, so surely then The Fall's most commercially successful album, at least to that point. Can't say though I'm impressed with this opener. And the next one is a cover, believe it or not, of Sister Sledge's disco hit "Lost in Music". Wait, what? Yeah you heard me, and I heard me, and even I don't believe it, but there it is.

Of course it gets The Fall treatment, but even so, come on guys! Sister fucking Sledge? What's next? "We Are (Dysfunctional) Family"? I suppose you can take it as a snide joke, a jab at the disco scene, otherwise it makes less sense than the next one, also a cover, of some fucker off New Faces who nobody remembers or cares about. "I'm Going to Spain"? Fuck off there then and leave me alone. Jesus on speed trying to break the habit! Okay, before that we have "Glam-Racket", which is pretty good, driving guitar beat and MES back to talking the lyric, while "It's a Curse" sounds a bit 1980s new wave to me, a lot of keys and synth against a hurried beat, but it's not bad. Nor is "Paranoia Man in Cheap Shit Room" with some pretty good guitar riffs and an almost heavy metal backing in ways, but overall this isn't really impressing me I have to say.

"Service" has a nice piano line leading it, sort of techno in feel but slower and it sounds like there are trumpets or something in there too. Checking... no, nothing shown, so possibly on synth. Probably the first track I've really enjoyed so far, that is an original one. I think in general I'm not enamoured by the over-proliferation of synth and techno dance beats here, which seem to be swamping the band out mostly. "The League of Bald-headed Men" is a good example of this, or, if you prefer, a bad one.

"Past Gone Mad" is another one. I lay most of the blame for this unexpected change of musical direction at the feet of Davy Bush, who seems to have brought his ideas of how to metamorphose The Fall into a dance band with him, and I'd be happy if he'd just fuck off, sticking his programming notions up the orifice of his choice. It's just not the same band I've listened to for, at this point now, over two weeks, and I don't like how they're going, what they're becoming. I don't know if they stayed this way, but I sure don't like it. Where are all the thundering bass lines, the snarling guitars, the wibbly occasional keyboards? It's all confused now, a big mess of sounds I find hard to separate. Ending then on "Light/Fireworks", and well fuck me into next Tuesday! It's more of the same, if not worse. Oh wait no it's the worst yet: some Daleks have been invited into the studio, MES sounds like Waits on a bad day, there's hardly any music and just a synthy bare bones line as he talks. Yuck.

Rating: 3/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 15
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 15 The Fall

(https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/6553103411b12dc19d5a8cf21320394e/1217365/the-fall-behind-the-counter-e_p-Cover-Art.jpg)
Title: Behind the Counter
Medium: EP
Year: 1993
General opinion: Unknown
Trollheart Falls in: It seems the Wiki list is less than complete when it comes to EPs, and according to RYM I've already missed out on a few. Well I'm not going back to do them at this point, when I'm still barely halfway through the albums and more than halfway through the month, but this one I will do, as it fits in to the chronology. Plus it's only three tracks, so why not? Looks like some of them may have ended up on later albums, and if so well I'll just reference them when/if I get to them.

Of course, the Y don't have the EP so again I have to take it apart and look for each track singly. The title track, as such, then, opens on MES saying "Waster" or something (never can quite get around that Mancunian accent) and is, thanks be to the fucking gods of post-punk, entirely devoid of poxy techno synth, driven on a snappy guitar and with some keyboard backup, but only in the background. MES is sort of half-speaking/half-singing the lyric in the way we've come to know. Yeah, even when the keys have a solo it's more like an actual keyboard passage than a buzzy, overwhelming wall of synth, as it was on the last album.

"War" starts with what sounds like tin cans being hit with a stick, then - god help me! - that fucking techno beat is back with a vengeance, as if to say "Ha! Thought you'd got rid of me did you? Well I'm BACK, motherfucker!" Thankfully it quickly fades out and the guitar takes over, then the two seem to wage, perhaps rather appropriately, a war for control of the song while MES bleats on about, presumably, war. It has a lot of energy though and I like it better than anything off the album. Well, almost. The final track is "Cab Driver" (which I thought I had heard already but I think I was mixing it up with "Cab it Up!" off one of the others - This Nation's Saving Grace maybe?) and this is pretty new wave alright, the keys and synth high in the mix, a slower, more sedate pace to the song, Mark's lyric so far almost entirely inaudible. Pretty much a techno instrumental. Meh.

Rating: 5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 16
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 16 The Fall

(https://e.snmc.io/i/600/w/366e22410c60800fd22c5d09cf9fccad/1458900/the-fall-behind-the-counter-ep-volume-2-Cover-Art.jpg)
Title: Behind the Counter (Volume 2)
Medium: EP
Year: 1993
General opinion: Unknown
Trollheart Falls in: Oh, and there's a second volume. Well of course there is. This also has three tracks, one being a remix of the title track off the first one, but it opens on good heavy guitar and wailing synth as we launch into "M5" (wasn't that the mad computer in Star Trek? I doubt that's what it's about though: probably some motorway in England) and MES is sort of singing here, so pretty decent really. "Happy Holiday" opens with an airport announcement in some foreign language, presumably the lads arriving for the aforementioned holiday, then it rocks along nicely on guitar with Mark half-singing, really more like one of their earlier songs. I think the title has little if anything to do with Christmas, and is more a sort of snide look at holidaymakers and tourists? Kind of sounds like a cross between The Fall and the Housemartins. The Fallmartins? Some funny banter in between about buying drinks and such, good organ run, then it's a remix of "Behind the Counter", which I'm not going to bother to listen to as I have enough to do already. Can't be that different.

Oh fuck it all right then, if you insist. I suppose it is just one more track. Let's give it a spin. Well honestly I don't fully remember what the original was like, but I don't think this is too much different. Might be more keys in it, really not sure.

Rating: 5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 17
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 16 The Fall

The various choices The Fall have made for covers have always kinda fascinated me. "I'm Going to Spain" was a weird novelty track from a british TV actor - and it wasn't particularly great in its original form, but The Fall turned it into something charming and wistful with MES for the most part properly carrying a tune. Then of course, like you said, they covered disco with Sister Sledge and provide an inspired cover that fits very well in the context of the broader album - you mentioned it might have been a snide joke, a jab at disco - but I don't think so - I think MES actually just liked the song and thought it would be fun to do a cover of it. Then there's "War" which you mentioned in the 'Behind the Counter' EP. That's actually a cover of avant-prog group Henry Cow. The Fall would later go on to cover the likes of Hank Mizell ("Jungle Rock") and Merle Haggard. There's really no common thread to any of this diverse set of music beyond the fact that The Fucking Fall covered them all. And again, I do find it fascinating.  :laughing:

How did I not see this.

You should have just listened to all 24 of their John Peel Sessions.
Same journey with all the fat trimmed off. :laughing:

But then TH never did do things the easy way.

BTW The Infotainment Scan is actually their best selling album.

Quote from: Suburban Placeholder? on Dec 16, 2024, 11:24 PMHow did I not see this.

You should have just listened to all 24 of their John Peel Sessions.
Same journey with all the fat trimmed off. :laughing:

But then TH never did do things the easy way.

BTW The Infotainment Scan is actually their best selling album.

Infotainment is their best selling album huh? Damn, that surprises me a little bit. If I had to have guessed, I probably would've guessed that The Frenz Experiment was their best selling.

A few of the tracks off these Behind The Counter EPs end up on their next record, Middle Class Revolt. I know of some Fall fans that felt disappointed by the record because of that, and even retrospectively, view it a little poorly because of that. I never listened to the EPs beforehand though, so that was never a negative with me. I actually think Middle Class Revolt is one of their more underrated records. It's a very breezy sounding record, perfect for relaxing autumn...or fall days.

The peel sessions are excellent btw. I bought the whole collection on CD for about $16 total around 10 years ago. Good thing I did, because you won't find it for any less than $160 these days.

It's also their highest charting album too (9 in the UK).
I think it may have been due to the record company. The previous 3 albums came out on a major label (Fontana) who had no idea what to do with them.
With Infotainment Scan they were back on large sized indie labels (Permanent in the UK, Matador in the US).
And they seemed to really put a lot of effort in promotion and getting the band out there in the media.

I don't think it's a coincidence that I first became aware of The Fall that very same year when one of their songs was put on an issue of Volume.

The Volume series was really cool, it was a compilation album of all new stuff that was coming out but with a whole magazine that was the same size as the CD case. Would come out every 3 or 4 months. Discovered a shit load of bands on those, including The Fall.

Quote from: SGR on Dec 16, 2024, 11:33 PMThe peel sessions are excellent btw. I bought the whole collection on CD for about $16 total around 10 years ago. Good thing I did, because you won't find it for any less than $160 these days.

Shit  :o
I got mine for £22 on the week it was released.

Best £22 I ever spent.

Was actually the first Fall album I ever bought.

Quote from: Suburban Placeholder? on Dec 16, 2024, 11:48 PMIt's also their highest charting album too (9 in the UK).
I think it may have been due to the record company. The previous 3 albums came out on a major label (Fontana) who had no idea what to do with them.
With Infotainment Scan they were back on large sized indie labels (Permanent in the UK, Matador in the US).
And they seemed to really put a lot of effort in promotion and getting the band out there in the media.

That seems like a pretty fair hypothesis. Yeah, if memory serves, it was only Infotainment and Middle Class Revolt that were released in the US thru Matador (who were, at the time I believe, also Pavement's label). I've actually got an original US Matador pressing of MCR. I'm not sure that The Fall ever had anything to do with them before or after that. The Fall jumped labels frequently throughtout the '90s and early '00s specifically - I know Cherry Red Records have been trying to buy rights to some of their records, like Fall Heads Roll from Narnack (which desperately needs another pressing).

Matador had a great roster in the 90s.
One of those labels where you could blindly buy something on it and know you'll like it.

Yeah, leave it to me to hate the albums everyone else likes!  :laughing:  Oh well, ever did I swim against the flow, or something. And I can't even swim! Is it totally weird that the more accessible The Fall get, the less I like it? Damn, but I've been singing "Bill is Dead" all day in my head. What have you guys done to me????
(https://media.tenor.com/GnduN97Hh2wAAAAM/eye-of-the-beholder-face.gif)

Oh, and welcome to the thread, SP! Glad to see you again. I'm off to read your interestingly-titled journal now, so will probably pop up there with a few off-colour jokes and uninformed comments. You know: Trollheartisms.

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 17, 2024, 02:13 AMIs it totally weird that the more accessible The Fall get, the less I like it?

The Fall will fix that for you before too long. And you've only got one album left until Brix rejoins the band for a spell.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/Middleclassrevolt.jpg)
Title: Middle Class Revolt
Medium: Album
Year: 1994
General opinion: Allmusic weren't sure, calling it "a mixture of lackluster performances and songs filled with vigor and fury", NME damned with faint praise, pronouncing the band "professionally incompetent, true punk artisans making masterpieces sound like demos" and The Boston Globe (why were they so interested I wonder?) also sat on the fence, saying "It's nasty, it's gleeful, it's the Fall still twisting the ironic/angry knife." Only Stereogum placed any cards face-up, declaring it to be their  "best album in at least five years"
Trollheart Falls in: Since I did the two EPs there are some tracks here I've already reviewed, it seems, so I'll just be nodding at them and moving on. This is one of the longest, in terms of tracks, Fall albums I've done, with fourteen, and even with the ones I've already heard I've got a good eleven or twelve to listen to, so I'd better get to it. "15 Ways" opens proceedings with an almost mono sound, which I have to say is a welcome change from Bush's dense techno beats, then it gets going on bouncy organ (shut it) as MES talks the lyric, the song bopping along nicely and while not taking us back to The Fall of Bend Sinister or Grotesque is a sight better than the previous one or two. Synth lines shouldn't be used to batter you over the head with, they should either flow with or lead the music, something Bushy needs to learn perhaps. Man I hate that guy.

Anyway, "The Reckoning" has a lovely clanging guitar riff to start it off, and Mark seems to be trying his best to sing this. It's slower - certainly not a ballad, but less energetic than the opener for certain. It has a nice Echo and the Bunnymen sound, or it would, if I had the first idea what I was talking about. The next two I know, "Behind the Counter" and "M5", so next up is "Surmount All Obstacles", which has a driving, kind of ominous rhythm and sees MES again doing his best to sing. Very uptempo without being breezy, clanging guitar reminding me again of early Police perhaps. Much less of the keys on this album so far.

The title track then is very much guitar-driven, with a high, shrieking one leading the melody and some pretty thunderous drums, MES drawling the vocal this time. A slower, more moody piece this, then "War!" is the last one I've heard, so from here on in it's all new stuff, and that starts with "You're Not up to Much", which slips along nicely and actually has him singing properly this time, proving he can when he wants to, or else he's learned to, but prefers not to most of the time. Maybe. I don't know. The chorus is more or less shouted in the background, and I don't even know that you could call it a chorus as such, since it seems to be called out pretty much throughout the song. Sounds like someone ran over a rooster on a motorbike at the end. That is, someone on a motorbike ran over a rooster, not someone ran over a rooster that was riding a motorbike. Just wanted to make that clear.

"Symbol of Mordgan" is just a confused mess: a lot of talk against someone playing various guitar chords, just pointless, then "Hey! Student!" is a fast, rockabilly-style tune with a rapid-fire vocal from himself, sort of shouted and possibly through a bullhorn. Kind of fun really. Actually, a lot of fun. Definitely my favourite on this album. The next one up is another cover, apparently by the Groundhogs, though whether recorded on that day or not I don't know. "Junk Man" sounds like it's pretty much of its time, and therefore out of place here, but what do I know? Given that the next track is called "The $500 Bottle of Wine", it sounds like MES is drunk behind the mike here.

As for that song, well it's also a lot of fun, with a somewhat slurred vocal chorus by the band, though I suspect at its heart lies a sentiment like "that would feed a family of [insert number here[ for [insert time period here]". Which is fair enough. I mean, what sort of cunt spends $500 on a bottle of wine? Oh right yeah: a rich cunt. Somehow this gives me a sense of very early Bowie, which once again proves I need help, and soon. What are hopefully the dying gasps of Bush's techno interference in the band surface on "City Dweller", which sounds more like something Daft Punk or some band like that might write, then "Shut Up!" is another fun song, with the band going "Well, well, well!" and MES yelling "Shut up!" against a kind of strange new wave keyboard melody. Fucking great.

Rating: 7.8/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 17
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 17 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/49/Cerebralcaustic.jpg)
Title: Cerebral Caustic
Medium: Album
Year: 1995
General opinion: Hard to say. Both Allmusic and our good friend The Boston Globe were picking the splinters out of their arses with such non-committal comments as "Generally the band sounds like they're having a great time...Smith himself sounds a touch disconnected around the edges, but makes up for it with some interesting vocal treatments and sudden interjections to leaven things up. (the former) and "another jagged pill from this long-churning engine of gleeful bile 'n' vitriol" (the latter). NME was a bit more forthcoming, worrying that the album  "can't help but flip into moments that are worryingly generic" and that "the band sound unremarkable". Trouser Press wasn't having any of that though, seeing it as "prime-slice Fall in all its caustic, cerebral glory. Rich with barbed hooklines and canny catch-phrases from a band that continues to refine its deliciously jagged edge, Cerebral Caustic is the best Fall album in years and a good omen for its future."
Trollheart Falls in: This is the album that featured the return of the Queen, as Brix and Mark put their marital differences aside to allow her to come back into the fold, whereupon she wrote or co-wrote half of the songs on the album, or close to it. "The Joke" opens things up in a sort of doomy introduction, thick bass and ominous guitar riffs before it blasts out full power, rocketing along, bashing you over the head and stealing your wallet. For a band who had two drummers and now only have one, I don't see the difference: one is definitely as good as two in this case. MES is kind of calling the vocal, not quite singing but something like it, while "Don't Call Me Darling", with its whispered warning, presumably from Brix, stomps along on hob-nailed boots, dancing gleefully and weaving from side to side. Whether the title is an allusion to the fact that, though Brix is back, she and hubby are still at loggerheads and he better not try anything, is anyone's guess, but would be mine. Her vocal definitely adds to this song. Her angry growl at the end is great.

I notice that for once almost all of the tracks here are short, three minutes or less, or just slightly more, but only two above four minutes. "Rainmaster" is much more restrained, slouching along on a nice lazy guitar line that may owe a lot to Keef Richards, while when I hear "Feeling Numb" I get a weird amalgam of The Clash and Bananarama. Shut up. "Pearl City" is another rough-and-ready track, with MES shouting the lyric over pounding guitar, little in the way of keys that I can hear. Apparently there's some other female doing backing vocals here, but I don't hear her yet. I've already heard "Life Just Bounces" so it's on to the only cover on this album, Zappa's "I'm Not Satisfied". I'm not a fan of the Big Z, but this is all right. MES does a half-decent job singing here, possibly because he has to? Anyway yeah, it's okay but I'm not a fan of covers overall.

Next up is "The Aphid", another fast rocker, which sort of underlines the problem here for me. The album is pretty much the same all the way through. No real standout tracks, nothing that terribly different, nothing unique. Not that every track is the same, but it's kind of hard to find anything to write about each as they all sound quite similar in structure and tone. Okay well just as I said that, "Bonkers in Phoenix" is exactly that: a whole lot of weird sound effects over an acoustic guitar line, which stops the song being perhaps a ballad, as you can't relax with all those zaps and beeps and farts going on, so perhaps an anti-ballad? Different anyway, and something the album has been lacking. Not to say I like it, but it does make a change. It's also the longest track, and I don't hate it as much as I should.

Full speed ahead then for "One Day", driven on a guitar that almost sounds like an electric fiddle! "North West Fashion Show" is, I think, Dave Bushy's last hurrah; after this he would be kicked out of the band, and not before time. Not surprisingly, as I've done with all his music, I hate this, but at least it's the last we have to put up with him. Actually there is a sense of fun about it, to be fair. The album finishes then on "Pine Leaves", which has a nice picked guitar line and some pretty frenetic synth. Not bad really.

Rating: 6/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 18
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 18 The Fall

Glad to see how much you liked Middle Class Revolt! Imo, it's one of The Fall's most understated and underrated records. It's one of the few Fall records I find to be cozy.

When it comes to Cerebral Caustic, it's in some ways mind-numbing ("I'm feeling numb now! I'm feeling nuuuuuumb"), but in other ways, it's quick, simple, and while it won't win any awards, it'll satiate your appetite and give you a playful slap in the ass on your way out the door. It's like the "fast food" of The Fall. Per "Bonkers in Phoenix" - that song was completely bastardized by MES. It was originally a nice acoustic track written by Brix called "Shiny Things" (you can kinda make out what it was SUPPOSED to sound like as you listen). MES said: "I know just what the doctor ordered for this one, we'll put a little razzle and dazzle on it and PRESTO! It's now a proper Fall track" and you can see how that turned out. Needless to say, Brix talked about how irritated she was about the whole thing in her autobiography.

If you found Cerebral Caustic boring or repetitive, if nothing else, I doubt you'll find their next two records to be that.  :laughing:

(https://www.troublefreepool.com/media/mr-bean-waiting-gif.190931/full)

(https://y.yarn.co/7d6c81bc-faa2-4d3c-947f-caa2cb88ed6c_text.gif)

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3c/Lightusersyndrome.jpg)
Title: The Light User Syndrome
Medium: Album
Year: 1996
General opinion: No idea. The music oracles were silent.
Trollheart Falls in: I can't believe that one album after she returned, Brix parted company with The Fall again! According to what I read, MES hardly showed up at all to the recording sessions, laying down all his vocals on the last day. Will that show in the final product? Only one way to find out. Hard, punchy, slow guitar to open "D.I.Y. Meat", then it speeds up as the bass burbles and it sounds like MES is singing mostly here. Very energetic song and I'd say back to their best really, with bubbly organ leading in "Das Vulture ans ein Nutter-Wain" alongside a very throaty guitar, quite psychedelic in its way. I notice Brix only writes, well co-writes, three songs here out of fifteen. Whether that means she knew she was leaving, the band (or MES) didn't want her input, or that she helped write some of the other songs but was not credited - happened before - I don't know. This one she seems to have had no hand in; whether that has any bearing or not on the fact that it's a confused mess I don't know, but it's a comedown after the opener. Just terrible.

The ghost of Dave Bushy raises its ugly head in "He Pep", with a very harsh techno beat fused to the sort of punkish style of the track and Brix (I assume) shouting the title. Yeah, don't like this much. But like Kraftwerk and Neu! Fighting over the last piece of bratwurst or something. "Hostile" has a rolling, hollow drum beat, reminds me of an old western movie, with Brix adding vocal chants over her ex's spoken lyric. It's, well, it's better, but it's still not great to be honest. "Stay Away (Old White Train)" kicks off with what sounds like a dog barking, but does continue the general upward trend since the second track (no I'm not fucking writing out all that German again!) and has a kind of rock-and-roll almost Elvis idea mixed with some mutant country themes, MES singing and doing an all right job of it. Oh I read it's not him, but the drummer. Perhaps that explains it. Also looks like it's a cover though, written by the immortal Johnny Paycheck, best remembered for that workers' anthem "Take This Job and Shove it." Brix seems to almost duet with him here, and it is a lot better. Slowly climbing that incline, or about to reach the limit and crash back down? We'll see.

Police sirens this time and a choppy, chugging guitar as we launch into the last track into which Her Brixness had any input (or on which she is credited anyway), "Spinetrak" another raw slice of rock with her becoming-familiar-but-soon-to-be-no-more-than-a-memory backing croons and wails. I do like this one, have to say, the heavy breathing on it is, um, suggestive, though MES don't seem to be moved. Well, on the last album she did warn him about calling her darling. Interestingly, that's two songs referencing trains, one after the other: could this be a hint for the girl? Time to leave town? Train leaves in the morning, be under it, or something? One of the longer tracks, "Interlude/Chilinism" gives the impression it may be one of those most rare things, a Fall instrumental (Fallstrumental?) but then it changes tack completely and in come the vocals. Like the guitar riff that runs through this part, and Brix's backing vocals are good too.

Overall though, I would consider this song to be allowing the album to slide back down that slope, but hopefully the engine will pick up steam again. Yes, I know: never one to make my metaphors when I can rob them from others. Loco? Not quite, not yet, but I am building up a head of steam. All right, I'll stop now. Right, the track is kind of endearing itself to me a little more as it goes on. I might end up liking it, but had to get halfway through before that happened. Now it's going all Vangelis/Jean Michel Jarre ambient drone synth-ish, with MES singing and the tempo reduced to a crawl. Interesting certainly. "Powder Keg" sounds a bit like Madness meets John Foxx. Look, best just not to make eye contact and back away, all right? I'm wanted in seven star systems. But unwanted in twenty-two thousand others.  :( The song is very frenetic, with mad keyboards, tumbling drums and a guitar slicing through it all. Sounds like a bunch of ghosts in the background. I had a book - well, Karen had a book - once that was for kids. You pushed a button on the front cover and it made this weird ghostly "WOOOOO!" sound. It was cool. Till the battery ran down in it. Books like that are wasted on kids. Anyway, the sound is like that, not that you'd know.

Okay I think that ran into "Oleano" while I was rambling on about Karen's ghost book, so sue me. "Cheetham Hill" is another pretty standard rock song with a guitar that reminds me of The Virgin Prunes maybe, sounds like there may be drum loops in it? The next track is the longest, over eight minutes, and I have to say I don't see any reason it needs to be that long. "The Coliseum" is a sort of dancy, techno deal with guitar cutting across it and MES spouting his lyric and then sort of singing the chorus, which is essentially the title. Another cover then in Gene Pitney's "Last Chance to Turn Around" (not written by him, no, but we tend to associate these songs not with the writers but with those who have hits with them), and it's good but again covers are as covers do, so on we go to "The Ballad of J. Drummer", which, not surprisingly, opens on drums, military ones to be precise, which drive it all through the song, and is a slow, sort of marching tune with some keys breathing in the background, and um, it's spelled the ballard: is that right? Ballad or ballard? Don't think such a word exists. It's pretty decent, whichever, very well put together, then "Oxymoron" has discordant piano and hand claps, picking up the tempo and it sounds rather a lot like "He Pep" from earlier, or am I losing it? Don't answer that; I don't want to know. We close then on "Secession Man", which has a weird, almost ska mixed with soul feel to it, with brass and what may be vibraphone or xylophone, something ending in phone anyway. I? Wouldn't know mate. I use a Samsung. Very upbeat and bright, almost incongruous with the rest of the album. But in a good way.

As an aside, I must say that The Fall, or rather, MES, didn't treat their fans very well. If I had paid to go to one of their gigs, I would have been less than impressed to see the lead singer and frontman stumbling about drunk on stage, or worse, the gig ending halfway because he couldn't complete the thing. I mean, people pay money for these experiences, and I think that's really pretty reprehensible. Whether this drunkenness and lack of control was going to influence later albums, I guess we'll find out tomorrow. This I would rate as flawed, but still better than the last one.

Rating: 7/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 3
The Fall: 19
Current score: Trollheart 3 - 19 The Fall

I love The Light User Syndrome - it's a little front-loaded though, and if they cut some tracks from the back half, it might be my favorite '90s Fall record - but as it is, it's got loads of great tracks. Here's a live acoustic version of "Powder Keg" - Brix having a good time, and Mark reading his lyrics off a couple of sheets of paper - the bassline rips :laughing:


Speaking of ripping basslines, can't believe you didn't like "Das Vulture Ans Ein Nutter-Wain" - that track's bassline is a bulldozer!:


And the mayhem and psychotic glee of "He Pep!" works wonders for me. "Secession Man" is one of the goofiest and most irreverent tracks of The Fall's catalog - it's so fucking silly, that I can't help but love it to pieces - the first time my ears were graced with those synth horns, it was love at first hear. I remember playing it in a van with my college radio buddies on our way back from a music festival trip in Virginia and they were like: "What the fuck are we listening to" - inside, outside, turn around! Other man! Other man!

Great record - and even underappreciated among Fall fans imo.

I forgot to post this TV spot the Fall did after you covered I Am Kurious Oranj - wish the quality was better, but the whole band looks like it's having a grand ol' time and they all look plucky and happy.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1d/Levitatealbum.jpg)
Title: Levitate
Medium: Album
Year: 1996
General opinion: Again, the silence is deafening.
Trollheart Falls in: Sounds like a wind-up toy or something then sort of haphazard drums, very tinny and that deep bass as "Ten Houses of Eve" get us on the road, MES sounding like he's still drunk from the night (morning?) before, sort of stumbling through the vocal. There is a sort of incongruous but quite beautiful piano piece now which takes the song and slows it down, taking it in an entirely different direction. Then it goes back to the way it was. No Brix now; she's headed back to the USA and people who appreciate her talents more, while MES apparently would go on to fire the entire band, as the keyboard player programmed computers and played both her instrument of choice and guitar to try to compensate, and it does show, making the album sound not quite Art of Noise, but definitely more electronic and sterile than previous efforts.

This comes through most strongly in "Masquerade", which, apart from Smith's vox, doesn't really sound to me anything like a Fall song at all. Almost sounds as if Bushy is back, though he's long gone. Perhaps the title is appropriate; MES going through the motions and pretending the band was still behind him, when it was literally falling apart. The Fall, indeed. "Hurricane Edward" is even more mechanised, with a spoken section before the music, such as it is, cuts in, and perhaps "Hurricane Mark" might have been a better title. Certainly destroying everyone around him with his behaviour, in concert with the VAT man, it would seem, who wanted his house.

God that was terrible, just a total train wreck. Next one is a cover, and again, "I'm a Mummy" could be a fairly apt title, as Smith seems to have been crashing from gig to gig, recording session to recording session like the walking dead, bottle of vodka in one hand, speed (um, whatever way it's taken: cigarette? Spoon? Injection? I'm not knowledgeable about these things) in the other, and a glassy, determined but defiant look in his bleary eyes.

Things don't get any better with "The Quartet of Doctor Shanley", which is more computerised drums and patterns and buzzing synths, MES stuttering the lyric as if he's either making it up as he goes along or has forgotten it, and has to make it up as he goes along. "Jap Kid" is at least a nice slow piano instrumental with ponderous drums, for which I assume most if not all the credit must be given to Julia Nagle, who also wrote it, the only track on the album she wrote solo, or possibly ever. Well, technically, since this is an instrumental version of another track heard later on, and she wrote that based on the lyrics of a poem, it's one of two she wrote. "Four and a half inch" (can't get the fraction on my keyboard layout) is back to the computerised patterns and stripped-down sound with MES shouting something about a house falling down possibly. At least there is some guitar making its way into the tune here.

Yeah this album is just getting right on my tits. It's pretty terrible. I might go so far as to say it's the worst and least enjoyable of theirs I've experienced yet, but I'd have to check back. I know there was one I gave a very low rating too. I feel this will be getting an even lower one though. "Spencer Must Die" sounds a bit like Waits on speed, or crack, or something anyway, with a low, sort of almost grinning vocal that's quite reminiscent of Matt Johnson in his early years (think Soul Mining or even Burning Blue Soul) and does have a really cool bass line and some nice piano runs, good vocal accompaniment (if sparse) by Julia, then "Jungle Rock" is another cover, and at this point I just do not care. I'm losing the will to live. This is one of the hardest Fall albums to get through, and given what I've already listened to, that, for me, is saying something. I feel like stopping it here, but I won't do that. It wouldn't be fair. Well, would be fair to me. But no, I said I'd listen to all the albums I could, and so I will. This one is really testing my resolve though.

I'm not entirely sure you could characterise "Ol' Gang" as an instrumental, with all the beeps and whines and howls and all, but it seems to be... not one anyway, as here comes MES. Again, got to wonder is the title reflecting the way he sees his band at this stage, aware or unaware that he will be kicking them out of the band a few months later (though he did rehire them two days later apparently), how he wishes things could be? Or has it anything to do with that? Probably not, but it's interesting. About the only thing interesting about this track, and it leads to another possibly apt title "Tragic Days", which opens on a snarling guitar chord, what sounds like surf or wind (or both) and has quite possibly the worst production of any Fall song I've ever heard, and then some. Not getting any better, is it? Thankfully it doesn't last long, just a minute and a half. The only shaft of light at all arrives in the form of  "I Come and Stand By Your Door", which is the vocal version of "Jap Kid" (yeah I know; other way around, but they're in reverse order on the album, which is just another strange thing about it). MES sounds just awful on this, and in fact he effectively ruins the piece with his drunken-sounding, slurred, rambling vocal.

And that leaves us with two: the title track is something of a nod back to the Fall of old, driven by a nice spiky guitar in a slow, laconic rhythm, and Smith half-singing; no mad effects, no computer patterns that I can hear, little in the way of keyboards, measured drums. If the rest of the album had been like this it would have been getting a better rating, but this is too little too late, and the final track, "Everybody but Myself", could perhaps be prefixed with "I'm gonna fire", as he did a short time later, in, of all places, Ireland. Would have been better off firing himself, as he seems to have been the problem all along. Oh, and pay HMRC while you're at it too Mark: even the taxman has to eat.

Rating: 3/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 19
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 19 The Fall

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Sorry. I didn't deliberately set out to hate it, in fact I'm doing my level best to be fair here.

But that was utter shite.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/73/The_Fall_-_The_Marshall_Suite.jpg)
Title: The Marshall Suite
Medium: Album
Year: 1999
General opinion: Again, see no evil, speak no evil, possibly. Hear no evil? Depends.
Trollheart Falls in: I shudder a little when I read this album "builds on the techno-influenced beats of its predecessor", which is not good news for me, as I rated that album the lowest yet. Somehow I don't think this is going to be an easy ride for me. It starts off encouragingly though, with a straight-ahead rocker in "Touch Sensitive", which sounds weirdly familiar to me. Those "Ah! Oh!" backing chants - I'm sure I've heard them before. This is essentially a whole new band, with only MES and Julia Nagle remaining, new members recruited to replace those he fired after the last one. Is that going to be a good or a bad thing? Well, if they could get away from the obsession with techno, I'd say good, but the Wiki page refutes that, so I guess we'll see. This is a decent, boppy, uptempo, crowd-raising number though, and does give me hope. Will that hope soon be dashed? Maybe. We'll see. "F-Oldin' Money" seems to be an old rock cover, good punchy guitar in it and MES can be said to be singing, not bad but as I say it's a cover, and right I see now why the opener sounded familiar to me: it was used in a TV ad.  A Fall song in an ad? Has the world gone (m)ad?

I see there are no less than three covers on this, which to my mind is never good, though apparently this second track is described by Smithy as "half a cover", so maybe it's nothing like the original. I wouldn't know. After that we have the very weird "Shake-off" (years before Taylor Swift) with a kind of dark doomy synth and Mark singing in a low tone before it breaks out on mostly percussion as he rants on. It is, as I said a moment ago, weird, and the first track on the album on which all or most of the new guys have a hand in writing. Sounds like there's some sort of scratching going on there too?

It's followed by the second cover, "Bound", which keeps the tempo high and brings in a fair bit of squealy keys, sort of a new wave idea and yeah it's not bad; gets a bit frenetic and mad near the end. I don't hate this so far anyway. The third cover is next, an old punk song apparently called "This Perfect Day" (presumably not to mixed up with the chart-topping charity song of similar title). It's very dense and muddy; not sure if that's the production or what, but it seems to have everything low down in the mix. Meh.Well at least that's us done with covers, so everything else should be original Fall material, and the first of these is "(Jung Nev's) Antidotes", opening on another big boomy synth line with a rising wailing guitar riff slicing through it, and this too is very dense, sounds piled up on top of each other as MES shouts against the music. Not a fan of this now at all, have to say. "Inevitable" is much better, with a strong almost acoustic guitar and what might be the return of the kazoo? Good throaty bass line keeping it together, and I would cautiously say that so far I haven't seen much of the techno-beats referred to and which characterised (read, ruined) the last album. Fingers crossed anyway. "Anecdotes + Antidotes in B#" is a good rock track, driving everything along nicely, then "Early Life of Crying Marshall" is fifty seconds of, well, nothing really: some sounds, effects, an odd riff, just nonsense, and it leads into "The Crying Marshall" itself, the figure upon whom, it is said, the album is based and who gives it its title (though I'd hardly call this a suite). It's not a lot better, and is I fear where the fucking poxy techno raises its thrice-cursed head again, but if it's an isolated incident I can take that. There are, anyway, only three tracks left. If that's a keyboard or a talkbox or whatever, it sounds like someone shouldn't have had beans before going into the studio!

Of those last three tracks, then, "Birthday Song", the only other one on which just Smith and Julia Nagle collaborate, is basically a ballad. No other way to describe it. And quite good too, with slow handclap beats and a mournful synthesiser line, but "Mad. Men-Eng.Dog" (presumably a play on the line "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noonday sun") is quite the mess, just a jumbled heap of percussion and MES talking against another backing vocal, as such, crooning in the background, while disappointingly, the closer, "On My Own", is nothing more than a reworking of the last album's "Everybody but Myself", so not much to say about that.

Nevertheless, given the "warning" at the start, nowhere near as techno as I had expected, and while still not really up to the standard of the better Fall albums, I suppose you have to remember this was a band which had Fall(en) - heh! Sorry - apart and was being hastily cobbled back together by Mark and Julia, so in that sense I guess I can't be too harsh on it.

Rating: 6.5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 20
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 20 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d3/The_Unutterable.jpg)
Title: The Unutterable
Medium: Album
Year: 2000
General opinion: The Guardian described it as a "career peak" while NME gushed that this is as vital and relevant as The Fall have sounded for a considerable length of time
Trollheart Falls in: And so we break a new millennium in with The Fall, this being, believe it or not (I don't) the twenty-first of their albums I have listened to. Perhaps apt, given that it's the first of the 21st century. It's also quite long, at 15 tracks, so let's get into the meat, as we say here. Very harsh opening, like a savage dog tearing at the leg of your jeans as you unsuspectingly walk through the gate, then "Cyber Insekt" is driven very much on synth, with rattling drums pulling it along at quite a pace. Good backing vocals from Julia, or is it some Japanese bird? Certainly sounds very foreign, so to speak, and there's a mention, so maybe. I guess you'd have to say The Fall were definitely moving with the times here, creating a new sound for themselves to usher in the new millennium. Sure does sound different. "Two Librans" relies much more on the old dependable guitar, almost metal or punk at times, very powerful riffs, very in your face, and completely different to the opener. The big snarling bass line is back, which is good to see.

Back to synth then for "W.B." with a nice slow lazy guitar line complementing the keys, a much slower, more relaxed song this time, then things speed up for "Sons of Temperance" which is pretty frenetic, and quite a lot of fun really. Oh, then it sort of falls into a kind of swinging beat, with spacy keyboard runs and ringing guitar, also a kind of sitar sound. With a pounding, ringing drumbeat and grinding guitar, "Dr. Buck's Letter" has a certain tribalism about it I feel , though it's a bit too long for what's in it, then an ambulance siren starts "Hot Runes" off, giving way to a jaunty guitar line, MES coming the closest he has on this album to singing. Very catchy, this one. A shimmery synth line runs through "Way Round", another one sounding like something out of OMD perhaps, might be some feedback guitar in there too.

"Octo Realm/Ketamine Sun" is just, well, weird. Starts off with I presume the band introducing themselves, then MES talks in rhythm behind nothing more than very thin percussion, sounds like he's in a small room with metal walls. Then the percussion gets much heavier and I guess the second part of the song begins, and it's a whole lot better, very tuneful and almost laid-back in its way. This is the longest track on the album, at just over five and a half minutes, and for once, there's enough in there for it to be. Good backing vocals and even MES has a stab at singing instead of talking. Kind of. "Serum" is pretty dense, a sort of ominous riff running through it, powerful buzzy drums and a deep synth roar, while for the title track it sounds like Mark is doing some ironmongery or rolling barrels into the pub (probably the latter) and talking at the same time. "Pumpkin Soup and Mashed Potatoes" has a very lounge/cabaret feel, with jazzy piano, horns and a finger-clicking beat. Definitely either emulating or slagging off someone or something here, I think. Flutes too, for the love of Nick Cave!

Really enjoyed that, and it shows MES can sing when he wants to. Sure, it was probably a joke but I still liked it. Back to the raucous punk rock styles with "Hands Up Billy", in case anyone gets any ideas, MES in full flight here, scowling down the mike with no doubt madness in his eyes, or something, but I'm not quite sure what to make of "Midwatch 1953", with MES drawling the title very slowly over what appear to be video-game sounds with possible attendant strings? The tune speeds up then slows down, then speeds up again. "Devolute" comes probably the closest to shoe-horning in those techno beats, but it's just basically a burbling synth with confused conversation behind it, could be MES multi-tracked or echoed or something, and we close on "Das Katerer", which seems to be a confused mess of honking synth, tapping drums and birdsong, then develops into a trance-style dance beat and MES half-singing the vocal. Funny that it's the most techno-ish track here and yet I kind of like it.

Very much a better album than the previous-but-one, and better than the previous. The future would appear to be bright for The Fall in the 21st century. Except, of course, it wasn't really, as MES passed away in 2018 sadly. Still, he racked out a good lot more albums before then. I feel it's likely I may only get to hear three or four more though, as it's getting closer to Christmas Day. Do what I can though.

Rating: 7.9/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 21
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 21 The Fall

Levitate is probably my favorite 90s Fall record - so unique, different, and boundary-breaking for the band. It came out of tumult and chaos though - and it shows. The Marshall Suite is a great record, though it's not exactly among their best. The Unutterable is a critical darling, and yet, I find it to be among their most overrated records. I think 3 or 4 tracks should've been trimmed and the record would be better off for it.

Since it seems likely I'll at best get another three, possibly four albums done before I head to my sister's for Christmas, likely returning after the new year, if there are albums you would rather I did before I finish, rather than doing the next ones in order, let me know. Otherwise I'll just keep going through the list as it is.

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 23, 2024, 02:26 PMSince it seems likely I'll at best get another three, possibly four albums done before I head to my sister's for Christmas, likely returning after the new year, if there are albums you would rather I did before I finish, rather than doing the next ones in order, let me know. Otherwise I'll just keep going through the list as it is.

No need to overcomplicate things, I like seeing you cover them chronologically.  :)

It's not a case of complicating things: I have at best four, but probably three days left before I head. I won't be back, in all likelihood, till after NYD, and this is to run a month, so that means I'll be moving on. So if there are other albums you think I should listen to as my final ones in this project, let me know. Other than that, I'll do the next 3/4 and that will be it.

Quote from: Trollheart on Dec 23, 2024, 06:17 PMIt's not a case of complicating things: I have at best four, but probably three days left before I head. I won't be back, in all likelihood, till after NYD, and this is to run a month, so that means I'll be moving on. So if there are other albums you think I should listen to as my final ones in this project, let me know. Other than that, I'll do the next 3/4 and that will be it.

Ah okay, I gotcha - alright, in that case, I'd offer the following four:

The Real New Fall LP: Formerly 'Country on the Click'
Fall Heads Roll
Imperial Wax Solvent
Re-mit

These are probably the 'best of what's left.'

Grand. I'll start listening to that first one now; review should be up later tonight (1830 here now). Thanks.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e6/The_Real_New_Fall_LP_%28UK%29.jpg)
Title: The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country on the Click)
Medium: Album
Year: 2003
General opinion: Pitchfork called it "as valuable an album as anything The Fall ever released in the 1990s" and stated that "Smith's lyrics are at a near career-best of insolence and nonsense. Allmusic agreed, stating that the album "gives the faithful another reason to believe". New to the fold Expressen said MES "grinds and spits on everything that moves. Sometimes it's completely incomprehensible, sometimes insanely entertaining", Uncut said it was "Great by Smith's standards. Practically genius by everybody else's." and PopMatters declared it "their best record in a decade".
Trollheart Falls in: Apparently the album was ready to go earlier than the release date, but Mark was none too happy with the mix, and so had to do it again, hence the double title, the latter of which was to have been the original one. It says here. There's a more cohesive sound straight away as "Green-eyed Loco Man" starts us off, some fine guitar riffs and a synth backing, then it goes into some sort of echoey weird thing, not quite sure what that is, and comes back. Hmm. It seems Julia Nagle, possibly the saviour of the band after Smith had fired everyone, is gone now, and replaced by Elena Poulou, who has no input into the writing. Whether that's her choice or not I don't know. "Mountain Energei", despite its (misspelled) title, is quite lacking in energy, very laconic and lazy, nice bass line but it just sort of meanders along, while "Theme from Sparta F.C." has that kind of Tv spy show feel to it, riding along on a sharp guitar line, kicking up the tempo again, features an exuberant chanting section.

Things go a bit wild then for "Contraflow", which certainly punks things up, flying along at breakneck speed, with the main lyric seemingly being MES grating about how much he hates the contraflow. Is that a traffic system? Think it might be. It's a pretty catchy tune, I'll say that for it. The very strange "Last Commands of Xyralothep via MES" features bouncing drumming and some sort of called exchange between MES and I presume Elena, riding along a hard guitar edge which is just this side of metal and keeps the tempo high, some fine harsh organ blending with the guitar and giving it almost a panicked feel, while "Open the Boxoctosis #2" keeps the guitar riffs going, punching along and with a nice humming bass line. MES is quite low-key on the vocal here, "Janet,  Johnny + James" slides along on a repetitive guitar motif, and he won't thank me for it but it brings to mind Lloyd Cole and the Commotions to me. Sorry Mark. Quite like this one.

A powerful keyboard run opens "The Past #2" with a screaming, warbly guitar accompanying it and MES at his most snarly on the vocal, some great stabs of organ from Elena punctuating the track. The only cover on the album, "Loop 41 (Houston)" doesn't do anything for me at all. Actually, I changed my mind: it's a cool lazy little blues track, not bad. Things get back to more or less normal with "Mike's Love Xexagon", a powerful rock guitar (though not 101) driving the tune in a sort of almost industrial manner, good backing vocals from the band, then a thick busy bass line drives "Proteinprotection" while Mark rants on about, well, something. Love the pounding guitar riff in this. Speaking of guitar, it's loud feedback that kicks off the closer, "Recovery Kit" also benefiting from some very new wave style synth and a bouncing bass line, probably the closest this album comes to techno, but I like it.

Rating: 7.8/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 22
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 22 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/04/The_Fall_-_Fall_Heads_Roll.jpg)
Title: Fall Heads Roll
Medium: Album
Year: 2005
General opinion: Positive again. Pitchfork called it "a grab-bag of a Fall album with brilliant highs and scattered lows". PopMatters said "Fall Heads Roll resounds with the same kind of incongruous charm that ingratiated newcomers with The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall or The Unutterable". While The New Zealand Herald (um, what?) saw it as "back to their raw, punchy and rocky best". Allmusic were more cautious, describing it as "a rocking album that relies heavily on its highlights" and the venerable old BBC said of Mark that  "Sometimes he's as sharp as a needle, sometimes he's incomprehensible."
Trollheart Falls in: Seems to be the longest gap between Fall albums so far, four years. Is that a good or a bad thing? Another long one, anyway, with 14 tracks, so we had better get to it. Hmm. For the first time, when I look for a playlist I get only one, and it's four tracks short. So I'll have to try to source the others separately. Okay I cannot find "Ride Away", the opening track, so the next one I can get is "Pacifying Joint" (which I assume has nothing to do with carpentry being relaxing) and drives along nicely on a thick guitar riff, sort of a triple punch in the chords. Ah, you know if you know the song. Good backing vocals from Elena here. "What About Us" has that punchy, driving rock, almost metal guitar and flies along at a good pace, almost a song you could headbang to, and in fact I'd go so far as to say one of the best Fall songs I've heard. "Midnight in Aspen" is much more laid-back in comparison, slow to mid-paced with a lovely little chingling guitar riff that wouldn't be out of place on for instance an album by Big Big Train maybe. Very nice. The closest The Fall have come, I would think, to doing a "normal" rock/pop song. Really excellent. Very impressed. Some talking with reverb to open "Assume" (another track I had to look for separately, thanks a fucking bunch!) with a guitar riff that sounds like a siren, "Aspen (Reprise)" is, well, a reprise of the previous song. Not that I don't love it, but if I'm honest I can't see the need for it.

A thick synth and punching slow drums bring in "Blindness" with a snarling, harsh guitar riff cutting into the tune and almost industrial rock style percussion pulling the melody along. Very dense and almost claustrophobic in its way, it has a sort of hypnotic, repeating motif somewhat like a drone to some extent, also gives me the idea of some sort of eastern or Indian instrument being used. Very good again, and it's followed by another of those damned covers, this being The Move's "I Can Hear the Grass Grow". The Fall must be a band who put the most covers on their albums; almost every one of them has at least one, and some have two or three. Could do without them. Much better is "Bo Demmick", which is again dense and layered, mesmerising and appears possibly to be that most rare of animals, a Fall instrumental. Ah, no, it's not: Mark just took a long time to come in with the vocal. This song pretty much lives or dies on its exuberant bass line, lovely.

"Youwanner" gets us back to uptempo, in your face rock and punk, hammering along nicely. One thing I do notice about these songs is that none of them are, for want of another word, "weird", none of them flag and they all follow a very basic melody, which is not always true of Fall songs. "Clasp Hands" is just a really fun uptempo song with a peppy guitar riff driving it and superb bass line ending it, slowing down to nothing. The last three tracks aren't on my playlist, so I have to go looking for them. "Early Days of Channel Fuhrer" has a nice swinging almost folk beat to it, the guitar sounding like it might be acoustic, though it may not. Very relaxed. There hasn't been anything on this album I haven't liked, so far, and we have only two tracks left to go, assuming I can get them both. "Breaking the Rules" sounds like something Springsteen might have recorded (minus MES's vocal of course) and is uptempo and breezy, while the closer (yes I got them all in the end, bar the first one) "Trust in Me" has a great rocky guitar which sort of builds up and is the perfect closer.

Really quite surprised. Usually there's at least one song I don't like or have a problem with. Cover versions apart, that's not the case here. I'd have to double down on what I said earlier: best Fall album I've listened to yet!

Rating: 9.6/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 23
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 23 The Fall

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/Imperialwax.jpg)
Title: Imperial Wax Solvent
Medium: Album
Year: 2008
General opinion: No quotes, but I'm told it was well-received.
Trollheart Falls in: This, then, will be the last Fall album I sample. Though there are still six days left in the month (and the year) I head out to my sister's house tomorrow for the rest of the Christmas, and don't expect to be back till New Year's Day, so that will be the end of my adventures in the wonderful and frightening world of some band whose name escapes me. The previous album I listened to turned out to be the one I have so far rated the highest; hopefully this will not be a comedown. It gets going anyway on "Alton Towers", presumably referencing the theme park with the big scary rollercoasters, and it's a slow, almost free-form jazz tune that has a very wandering feel about it, not what I would have expected really, but then, who knows what to expect with these guys? The spooky keyboard synth sound fits in well with the theme, but it's about the only thing that does, and those fucking horns are doing my head in. No; don't like this one at all. With a wolf howl we launch into the much more upbeat and punky "Wolf Kidult Man" (I assume "kidult" is a portmanteau of kid and adult?) which drives along nicely on sharp guitar and is much better. I love the riff running through this, though I have to say my eyes widen, and so possibly do my bowels as I note the runtime of the next track!

"50 Year Old Man" stretches for a Falltastic eleven minutes, which is far and away the longest of their tracks I have ever endured, I mean, listened to. It opens pretty energetically anyway, which helps, that thick busy bass line in command, but is it going to be a case of a very repetitive song just being dragged out for no reason? Well, perhaps not. About 4 minutes in it changes completely to a country jamboree complete with banjo, which is actually really nice, some kazoo or maybe harmonica and a fair bit of laughter before it picks up again on electric guitar and (sigh) goes back to the old refrain that has been running through it up to now. The ninth minute sees the rhythm section take it as the bass and drums kind of solo, then it changes slightly to a more brash, upfront kind of rhythm on the guitar, but no, overall I'd have to say this is a bloated monster that does not need to be this long, and I don't know why it is.

Most of the remaining tracks are, to be fair, quite short, other than one, and "I've Been Duped" runs for barely three minutes, but for my money is a far better song than the previous behemoth. Also features Elena on vocals, which is something new, though honestly I can't say she's a revelation, and it might be better if she was kept away from the mike after this. She just doesn't have any personality on vocals, and I don't know why they (presumably MES) decided to give her a shot. Anyway, that other track that's long is a cover - yes, another one, and another by The Groundhogs. It's almost a relief to hear Mark drawling the vocal after Elena's effort , but I really don't see the point of fucking covering every sixties song they can lay their hands on. Still, that's The Fall for you I guess. Pass.

Written solo by Elena, it's no real surprise that "Taurig" is a) an instrumental (one of the few Fall ones) and b) constructed almost entirely around a keyboard and synth melody. Not bad, but meh, nothing special. On then to "Can Can Summer" (subtitle, ever happen in Ireland?) which is okay, clever and upbeat with a pretty infectious rhythm and some fine keys, while "Tommy Shooter" initially sounds like some kid playing a toy keyboard, then grinds up with a metal-style guitar, "Latch Key Kid" has some interesting brassy keys and trips along nicely, but overall I'm finding this something of a disappointment compared to the last album. Still waiting to be impressed.

A lot of punk energy in "Is This New?" but sadly, it's not, and I've heard this sort of thing before and it doesn't do anything for me. The stop/start guitar is mildly interesting, but The Fall can do a lot better than this, surely? "Senior Twilight Stock Replacer" is pretty generic at this stage, and the album then ends on the interestingly-titled (especially for Christmas) "Exploding Chimney", which fails to live up to my expectations, as does this album, sadly.

Rating: 6.5/10

Trollheart vs The Fall
Trollheart: 4
The Fall: 24
Current score: Trollheart 4 - 24 The Fall

Trollheart's final word:

Whether I mixed them up with another band or just misremembered the little I had heard from The Fall, this is not the band I had expected. I had the idea in my mind that they did a lot of experimental noisy stuff, feedback and tape recordings and birdsong and that sort of thing, and while there is some of that on some of the albums, mostly it's kind of basic in one way: MES's method of singing, to use the word in its widest interpretation, is without question unique and very different, but behind all that is a relatively listenable post-punk band, and I'm sure if I delved into the lyrics, had I time, I would discover that Smith was quite a genius.

But I must move on, so I'll just say that while this project in no way made me a fan of the band, and while I sincerely doubt there are any of their albums I would listen to for pleasure, it did give me a better understanding of their music - in, admittedly, the limited time I had to appreciate that - and I would not be quite so dismissive of them in future. There won't be a place in Trollheart's Music Library under F for The Fall, by any means, but i can now point to a few tracks, even the odd album that I can say, yeah, I listened to that and you know what? It wasn't so bad.

Best I can do. Not a fan, but I no longer hate them. Did I consider it a struggle, the last month? At times, yes. This does also have to take into account the fact that I was doing so much else, including my mammoth Christmas thread, but even so, had it been just listening to one album a day and nothing else I still think it would have worn on me, and there was no time at which I could have said I was looking forward to the next album, but I think it's fair to say I got not to quite dread them as I had thought I would.

The final score tells the story more succinctly than I ever could: Trollheart 4, The Fall 24.

Trolls, thanks so much for doing this! I appreciate your effort and I had a lot of fun reading your thoughts on each record on your journey!  :)

The beautiful thing about The Fall is how different everyone hears/appreciates their records. Fall Heads Roll for example appeared to be your favorite Fall record, but it probably wouldn't even crack my top 10.

You're a trooper Trolls, hats off to you!

Not at all. I always like to try to push myself out of the old comfort zone, and I was glad I got to finish it (in so far as I could, given the Christmas and all) and can now appreciate the band a lot more. Will I feel the same after listening to 14 Korn albums? Head there to find out!

Quote from: Trollheart on Jan 01, 2025, 09:22 PMNot at all. I always like to try to push myself out of the old comfort zone, and I was glad I got to finish it (in so far as I could, given the Christmas and all) and can now appreciate the band a lot more. Will I feel the same after listening to 14 Korn albums? Head there to find out!

Good luck! You may find yourself, after 3 albums of Korn, reminiscing about the days you only had to listen to MES's drunken rodeo rants  ;)

At least you'll make @Norg happy though!

Surprisingly, it's started very well!  :yikes:

I didn't say listen to korn I said all there solo albums and bands

Korn has been catatoized long ago if u haven't heard korn u late bro lol ...but whatever floats your boat

Quote from: Norg on Jan 02, 2025, 08:53 PMI didn't say listen to korn I said all there solo albums and bands

Korn has been catatoized long ago if u haven't heard korn u late bro lol ...but whatever floats your boat

Huh?

It makes absolutely zero sense to ask me to listen to the solo projects of people from a band I know nothing about. If you want me to listen to Korn, that's fine, but I have no benchmark to work from if I start doing solo work instead of the band. That would be like, I don't know, suggesting I listen to all the work of Phil Collins without ever hearing a Genesis album. How would I know how different, if at all, his solo music was to that which he produced within the band structure?

No. There's no logic to that. It's Korn the band or nothing.
(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/66288651.jpg)

Ok ....

Now I got the itch to listen to corey Taylor's solo work lol

If u think about it slipknot really isn't his band he just a employee he joined kinds late and is the 2nd singer

Quote from: Norg on Jan 03, 2025, 09:02 PMIf u think about it slipknot really isn't his band he just a employee he joined kinds late and is the 2nd singer

 :laughing:

And there, ladies and gentlemen, you have Norg. In a nutshell. Or is that case? Anyway, question answered. Now where's that "closed" sign...?