February 9, 2001

Fall : The World Bewitched

This leaves the world bewildered.

4 / 10 Since the late-'70s, The Fall have been, er, 'bewitching' the globe with their impression of an industrial accident at a chunky bass factory involving a pissed-up train station announcer just back from a session of heavy-duty dental work. They made seven trillion vaguely inaccessible rockabilly/techno/punk albums before finally stumbling across the concept of melody in 1990 and making seven trillion more rather nifty rockabilly/techno/punk albums
that eluded categorisation like
their singer eluded anything under 40 per cent proof.

So, obviously, what the world really needs is a two-hour compilation of all the shambolic experimental shit they whacked off on their '90s albums ('Extricate' through 'The Marshall Suite') once the meths kicked in, plus an assortment of Mark E Smith's collaborations with the likes of Elastica, Badly Drawn Boy, Edwyn Collins and Inspiral Carpets, which generally suffer from the band in question trying not to laugh at the piss stains on Mark's trousers throughout. We really need to revisit '4 1/2 Inch', a song which could have been recorded entirely during a fire, the Jon Spencer-during-tonsil-surgery of 'Strychnine', or 'Glam-Racket', in which Marc Bolan's car misses the tree entirely only to crash into a combine harvester full of Semtex. We'll grant them the uncovering of lost treasures 'Noel's Chemical Effluence', 'Blood Outta Stone' and the Inspirals' riotous 'I Want You', but otherwise this leaves the world bewildered.

Mark Beaumont

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