Here we go, my first review that nobody’s done on the site before.  Hold your breath and cross your fingers.

It’s been a helluva year for our man, Mr. Mark E. Smith. Last summer, everybody in the Fall apart from his wife ditched the band mid-US tour (something about a banana? Who knows.) This isn’t the first time Fall membership has turned over almost completely (as opposed to one-at-a-time like usual) and last time it lead to The Real New Fall LP, the best thing they’d done in at least a decade. The relationship soured quickly, though; Fall Heads Roll, despite containing a song so good that advertisers sat up and noticed, was largely substandard and complacent. Two albums in and they’re bored? Oh dear.

Mr. Smith and the missus went ahead and recruited a bunch of California dudes, finished up the tour, and set about making a new record (but of course). I was pretty excited to hear how the sensibilities would match up, and the results are…well…shall we say mixed? No, let’s say a brilliant side A and a total shit side B.

Why I like Side A:  We get a maniacal laugh from Mark and we’re into the first song, “Over! Over!” The prototypical Fall rockabilly-chuck starts up and the lyrics go “I think it’s over now/I think it’s ending/I think it’s over now/I think it’s beginning.” A tribute to themselves, as always. “Reformation!” is nearly as intoxicating, with back-and-forth guitar bits and a nice little squiggly keyboard riff. And “Fall Sound” is just as advertised, musically reminiscent of The Frenz Experiment and The Unutterable all at once while Mark E. shouts “brrrrrrrrr! brrrrrrrr! You just woke up to Fall Sound!” After a pretty decent cover of Merle Haggard’s “White Line Fever” comes “Insult Song.” Mr. Smith does an American accent, calls his band “retards” and his wife “the mad Greek woman, the Hydra.” Cute enough, but maybe not six minutes worth. “My Door Is Never” brings things back in line, and the extremely poppy “Coach and Horses” leads us down the chute…

Why I hate Side B: Bypassing “The Usher” (which contains groovy bass lixx and thus is no good), we hit the first big roadblock on “The Wright Stuff.” The classic Mark E. Smith line goes “If it’s me and your grandmother on bongos, it’s The Fall.” This song has the same problem as “Trust In Me” off the last album: no Mark E. Smith. Therefore, it’s not a Fall song and I really don’t want to hear it on a Fall album. Then, a FUCKING APPLAUSE SAMPLE (as if to underline how damn shitty the song is) leads us to “Scenario,” which is just kinda boring. And then: OHHHHH and then: “Das Boat.” “Das Boat” starts off with two full minutes of guitar-and-keyboard riff buildup, leading to keyboard sound effects, somebody whacking something with a stick, and Mark and Eleni Smith randomly saying “Das boat,” “blue boat,” and going “Ee-ee, ee-ee!” FOR TEN MINUTES. By the end I was mentally screaming at the top of my lungs “Goddammit, can I just get a fucking song in here?” No, I get “The Bad Stuff,” a band argument over who should start a formless jam with an answering machine recording laid over it. Finally (apart from an “outro”) “Systematic Abuse” closes things out, but it’s too late to care.

Typically two or three odds-and-ends records come out between real Fall albums, and I wonder if this is actually supposed to be one of them. Four good tunes coupled with bad, bad filler. Is this really what the Fall are now? Is it America’s fault? Are we all just being fooled yet again? I don’t mind being fooled if it’s fun, but this shit is no fun. I must admit, though, that I’ll still check the next album out. One bad Fall album doesn’t mean another won’t be great.

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