brian_lettsin's Full Review: The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall by...
Greetings! You and I have never met before. I am Brian Lettsin and this the last review I shall be writing for this illustrious website. It is time to disappear from this glorious and rather bland place where people slave for hours writing reviews in the slim chance someone in cyberspace might peruse it in idleness and make a purchase.
Yes… I am a cynic. However, please do not let this dissuade you from the review itself. The album I have selected to end on is fitting since it is currently the record I am most enamoured with in my vast CD collection.
The band I am sure you have never heard of before. There are no reviews on this product as of yet, meaning the choice I have made is esoteric and difficult. Just like me. This being the case, allow me to explain who The Fall are and what makes their music so special to the discerning middlebrow consumer such as yourself.
The music can be filed under experimental rock. Although some complain about their inaccessible nature, this music is delicious in such a way that I find this statement both heinous and ludicrous… at the same time!
The Wonderful and frightening World of The Fall sounds like a compilation of the band’s work. This is incorrect. It represents the band jumping from unpleasant independent labels to the big record companies where you can leave your soul at the door. This album was released in 1984 and the group had, up until this point, taken an anti-corporate stance, which was vanquished through frustration and their popularity increasing in the indie rock and post-punk scene. Excited yet?
At a time when what was popular reeked to high heaven in Britain, The Fall provided the antidote. With barbed commander Mark E. Smith and his pop-tastic co-writer and wife Brix Smith at the helm, they dragged the grotty mulch of past albums into the age of the Dark and the Grim. With humour, style and panache, of course.
Lay of the Land begins the album with a rollicking clatter after an eerie minute of bizarre sneering at the apocalypse. Not so amusing now, I would discern. This tune is just excellent, with a rippling bass line running along the lead guitar and shards of feedback screeching in and out of the tight stop/start chorus and impudent vocal.
2x4 is a tremendous pop clatter with intelligent lyrics in the uninterpretable vein from Smith and a nice pop back-up from his pop-tastic wife. Copped It boasts a eye-popping cameo from Virgin Prunes front man Gavin Friday who delivers a suitably uproarious vocal turn throughout the mangled rock hellfire.
Elves utilises a hook very similar to the Stooges’ I Wanna Be Your Dog but builds into a twisted gothic attack on Scottish dwarves in the music business. Oh! Brother subverts the Bob Dylan weepie with an infectious drumbeat and a tantalisingly catchy melody. The original LP had the cheek to exclude this track since it was a single and not an LP track! The impudence…
Draygo’s Guilt is the hardest track on the album in terms of thrashing punk assault, with its overdubbed vocals and double-drum attack reminiscent of the stink evoked in classic early eighties album Hex Enduction Hour. See previous review for details. The tune boasts an infectious chorus that sounds rather like: “A-bomb the hills!”
God-Box is less impressive but comes down harder on American TV evangelists than Phil Collins’ Jesus He Knows Me and boasts a nice stop/start rant from Smith. Clear Off! is a gentler tune in places, with an affecting piano part and eerie vocal mutterings from Gavin Friday.
C.R.E.E.P. was the lead single from the LP and is an attack on those fools in the music industry who loiter the stars. Smith describes with little empathy an “ugly gawk” whose “presence is offending.”
Pat-Tip Dispenser mixes the vocals lower but is a winding ode to drug dealers. Slang King is similar to the previous tune with its attack on zeitgeist-chasing morons but has such an infectious and scratchy guitar part from Craig Scanlon, who can argue?
Bug Day starts with a creepy guitar mimicking the scuttle of insects as they mobilise for revolution. The rising sounded a little weak, since all that happened was that “midges hovered over the heather” and “three moths shivered” while Smith won the best underwriting award of the year with the line “Minoa said eek.”
Stephen Song rises to a brilliant climax and almost has a spiritual lift to it, and was good enough to inspire Brix Smith’s appalling spin-off outfit Adult Net. Craigness is fun but feels like bluesy filler. Still, most Fall filler trumps other band’s A material and no mistake, mate.
Disney’s Dream Debased is a twisted and elliptical imagining if what would happen were the evil toy empire to go berserk. It ended the original album on a fun and mysterious note. Album closer No Bulbs is a magnificent apotheosis of the group’s pop-rock merging skills since here mad guitar solos are pushed into one of the most effective and catchy choruses the band ever recorded for a fabulous husband/wife tour de force. Who could expect such a glorious sound from a tune about insufficient belt facilities in a dingy flat?
The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall is a brilliant post-punk album and perhaps the finest record in the canon. It is the peak of the unit’s pop powers and delivers a blast of furious and rollicking pop/rock fun to all those in need of it. Recommended to all those with an appreciation for independent music. Or ears.
Thus concludes the end of my last ever review on this site. Well, I will do a proper goodbye in a few days but it was my last review of a product on here at least. I am welling up with tears here. No… leave me alone to feel sad.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.