THE FALL Vinilo y CD

Review: We all lost a big one in 2018 with the death of Mark E. Smith. One of the most prolific songwriters of the preceding decades, and the only constant member of The Fall, he channelled humour of the disenfranchised, rage of the people, punk sensibilities and experimental tendencies to create something that genuinely sounded fresh. Amazingly, it still did by the time he bid us farewell. That's some longevity of vitality, and when a band has such a lifespan it's almost impossible to even consider a Best Of type release. White Lightening is as close as you'll get, then, focusing on ten tracks recorded by the outfit, in various iterations, between 1978 and 2001 - amazingly, charting two-thirds of the 40 year story in a way which, while not necessary expansive, really conveys exactly what they were about at different points in that career, and throughout their entire era-spanning run.

Review: The Fall apparently weren't thrilled with Rough Trade focusing so many resources on the Smiths, not least as it meant the full length video they wanted to make to accompany this, their sixth studio album, would not be possible, while the other band got the money to make one. Mark E Smith and company's response was to produce their own, and in many ways the 52-minute Perverted By Language Bis, directed by multifaceted French enigma Claude Bessy, remains one of the archetypal pieces of Fall iconography. The music isn't bad on its own, either, opening on the relentlessly catchy 'Eat Y'self Fitter', once described as "endlessly cycling rockabilly chug with extra keyboard oddities and sudden music-less exchanges for the chorus." 'Neighbourhood of Infinity' then picks up the pace, and grit, and we're soon in deep. A record that impresses musically and in terms of forward thinking production (see: 'Garden') without sacrificing the grass roots energy of post punk at the time.

Review: The Fall's Mark E. Smith was having a rather torrid time even by his own standards when the band made The Marshall Suite in 1999. He was fresh back from a US tour on which he had been fighting with fellow band members on stage and was later arrested after carrying on the shenanigans back at the hotel. The album itself builds on the techno sounds The Fall had explored on the preceding album Levitate but also with something of a return to the rockabilly-influenced sound from earlier Fall line-ups. Cuts like 'The Crying Marshal' are as strange and complex as they come with thumping jungle drums powering it along.

Review: These days you are as likely to find articles entitled Is 'The Classical' By The Fall Racist? as you are glowing reviews of this album. Sure, times have changed, and modern attitudes are different to what they were when this album was released, but it's up to you to decide if that diminishes the music. The Fall's fourth studio record is best exemplified by the anthemic title track and the lyrics point to the band's hatred of the music industry when it was written. The late Mark E Smith said, "It was our way of saying 'fuck off!' to those people."

Review: Last year, former Fall guitarist (and now celebrated radio broadcaster) Marc Riley stumbled on a rare bootleg recording of a concert the band had given to a sparsely populated audience at St Helens Technical College in the spring of 1981. To celebrate the gig's 40th anniversary, the recording has now been re-mastered and pressed to wax. It's a brilliant document of the Fall at their post-punk era best, with legendary front man Mark E Smith talking, singing, yelping and shouting has way through a series of raw, post-punk era workouts built around raucous, fuzz-toned guitars, low-slung basslines and loose-limbed drumming. For fans of Smith and his long-running band, it should be an essential purchase.