On 2003’s ‘The Real New Fall LP’, Mark E. Smith and his band sounded somewhere near the top of their game. Some of their more critical fans might claim the record didn’t quite capture the fire of their early work, but the record boasted more than its fair share of memorable performances. It showed the now veteran act in a position of strength and would be a hard act to follow, if not impossible, especially considering Smith had a habit of shaking things up whenever he felt things might be going too well.
Tag Archives: the fall
Fall Sound Archive Vol. 11: The Unutterable
In the early 90s, The Fall hit upon a relatively commercial sound on albums like ‘Extricate’ and ‘The Infotainment Scan’, but as the decade wore on, they found themselves somewhat floundering. Unable to capture a distinctive sound, at least beyond Mark E. Smith’s trademark drawl, their albums became a little hit and miss. 1995’s ‘Cerebral Caustic’ traded in their sharper edged approach for something far more lo-fi; the swiftly delivered ‘Light User Syndrome’ sounded like Fall-by-numbers (although they were great on that tour), and 1997’s ‘Levitate’ abandoned most of the band’s post punk and garage tendencies for extra synths and a barrage of dance rhythms, creating the ultimate opinion-divider. The best bits of 1999’s ‘The Marshall Suite’ reminded everyone that the band were still capable of delivering a few bangers (‘Touch Sensitive’ would go on to become one of The Fall’s most enduring tracks), but by the turn of the millennium, it began to seem like The Fall mightn’t deliver a “classic” album ever again.
THE FALL – Fall Sound Archive Vol. 10: Middle Class Revolt
In some ways, The Fall’s 1994 release, ‘Middle Class Revolt’ has spent most of its life living in the shadow of its immediate predecessor, ‘The Infotainment Scan’. With the help of a rather spirited cover of ‘Lost In Music’, ‘Infotainment’ found its way into the consciousness of the more casual listener and, as a whole, the album showcased a more commercial sounding Fall at somewhere near their best. In retrospect, ‘Middle Class Revolt’ has actually aged just as well, and a few of the record’s deeper cuts provide a really interesting listen.
The 2025 super deluxe release from Cherry Red Records, wisely, takes a tried and tested approach when it comes to re-presenting the album with a wealth of interesting period extras. Mirroring the ‘Infotainment’ box set, the vastly expanded ‘Revolt’ greets the fans as a six disc tome, with the original long player joined by a disc of studio based extras and a generous four disc helping of sounding live material drawn from different sources.
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THE FALL – Fall Sound Archive Vol. 9: The Infotainment Scan
By the beginning of the 1990s, The Fall were barely recognisable from the band who’d given the world ‘Live At The Witch Trials’ just over a decade earlier. Mark E. Smith’s fearless approach had steered the band down broader musical avenues, far beyond their punky roots, and the line up of The Fall that delivered the brilliant ‘Extricate’ album in 1990 were a hugely sophisticated musical unit. The flirtations with a Manchester influenced indie sound and a few dance oriented beats on tunes like ‘Telephone Thing’ from that album, and the synth based sounds on tunes like ‘The Mixer’ and ‘Sinister Waltz’ (from the following year’s ‘Shift-Work’) may have lost them a few fans, but regular coverage in the music press and a desire to stay contemporary won The Fall new admirers. By the time of the recording 1993’s ‘The Infotainment Scan’, The Fall’s “90s sound” had really found its feet.
THE FALL – Fall Sound Archive Vol 8: The Real New Fall LP (Formerly Country On The Click)
The Fall’s twenty third studio album had a tricky birth. In 2003, a release called ‘Country On The Click’ was almost ready to make its way into the world, but plans changed at the eleventh hour. Depending on which stories you believe, the original release was either cancelled because Mark E. Smith was unhappy with the final mix, or shelved because it’d somehow found its way onto file-sharing services and bootlegged. Either way, a second version of the record – now titled ‘The Real New Fall LP (formerly Country On The Click)’ – made it onto Britain’s record shop shelves in October of that year.
Initial reviews were generally positive, and over the years, it’s become somewhat of a fan favourite in “later period Fall” terms, and it’s pretty easy to hear why. The bulk of the material adopts a fairly typical “Fall sound” – if, indeed, there ever was such a thing – but the arrangements are often superb, and Smith appears in particularly great form throughout, armed with lyrical barbs and a suitcase worth of obtuse lyrical references that serve some superb riffs and angular noises. It doesn’t seem to matter which way you approach ‘The Real New Fall LP’, it plays very strongly.