Trollheart spends time with... The Fall!

[Suburban Placeholder?]

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.

[Suburban Placeholder?]

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.

Shit 
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.

[SGR]

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.

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).

[Suburban Placeholder?]

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.

[Trollheart]

Yeah, leave it to me to hate the albums everyone else likes!    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?


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.

[SGR]

Is 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.

[Trollheart]

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

[Trollheart]

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

[SGR]

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. 

[SGR]

[Trollheart]

[Trollheart]

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

[SGR]

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

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.

[Trollheart]

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

[SGR]