Design By Humans
Published On: Fri, Aug 25th, 2017

The Fall: New Facts Emerge

The Fall
New Facts Emerge
(Cherry Red)

Buy it at Amazon!

While catching up on The Fallā€™s more recent history I was surprised to find that the band has consisted of a total of 66 members throughout its impressive and rather surreal 40-year history, and that Mark E. Smith (founder and vocalist) is the only remaining original member. That said, the past decade has seen a more stable lineup than previous years.

Thereā€™s something to be said for stability, as this album feels very set in its ways compared to their previous work, much more uniform than usual. In addition to Smithā€™s trademark staccato, off-kilter vocal deliveries, I recognize many familiar trademarks in the first track alone.

ā€œSegueā€ opens with a distorted, sing-song verse and disjointed hand claps, which cascade unapologetically into the jangly lurch of ā€œFol De Rol.ā€ Ā ā€œBrillo De Factoā€ has some catchy guitar hooks, but I feel a little cheated that I canā€™t understand the lyrics.

In fact, I feel like a lot of the album could use subtitles somehow, maybe as scrolling metadata embedded in the track on iTunes. Iā€™m not sure how it would work, but I do feel that the incoherence of Smithā€™s vocals, takes away from the impact of this album a bit, especially given that heā€™s released a couple of spoken word albums and obviously has a way with words.

ā€œCouples vs Jobless Mid 30ā€™sā€ legitimately gave me weird dreams with its obnoxiously persistent drums and bizarro narrative which, again, can barely be deciphered. ā€œO! Zztrrk Manā€ is a Fugazi-ish throwback to their earlier days and is joyfully noisy. Turn it up!

In short, if youā€™re okay with not ā€œgettingā€ most of the lyrics, you might enjoy this album. To be fair, Mark E. Smith has been described asĀ ā€œa strange kind of antimatter national treasureā€ and is 60 years old, so he gets to do what he wants. Itā€™s up to you if you want to listen.

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The Fall: New Facts Emerge