Urban Hat€monger ?

Album Tracklisting: Lay of the Land / 2 × 4 / Copped It / Elves / Slang King / Bug Day / Stephen Song / Craigness / Disney's Dream Debased

Re-issue Extras: Oh! Brother / God Box (7" Single 8th June 1984)
C.R.E.E.P / Pat-Trip Dispenser (7" Single 24 August 1984)
Draygo's Guilt / Clear Off! / No Bulbs (Call For Escape Route E.P. 12 October 1984)

Band Line Up: Mark E. Smith - Vocals / Brix Smith - Guitar, Vocals / Craig Scanlon - Guitar / Steve Hanley - Bass / Paul Hanley - Drums, Keyboards / Karl Burns - Drums, Bass / Gavin Friday - Vocals on Copped It , Stephen Song & Clear Off

Critique: Another year , another Fall album and another record label. Smith's relationship with Rough Trade had always been problematic. 1983 saw another problem appear in that relationship. Namely The Smiths. Smith was annoyed that all Rough Trade's time and money were being directed towards Morrissey & co and that Rough Trade were not realising the full potential of the band. He also felt that The Fall deserved more respect from the label being an already established act. Matters came to a head when the label refused to back a full length video for the Perverted By Language album. In the end the band did it themselves for £500 and released it on Ikon Video.The band eventually signed to the biggest independent label not affiliated with the big 4 , Beggars Banquet for (if the press releases were to be true) 5 Bauhaus singles of their choice. The first fruits of this relationship were the single Oh! Brother followed quickly by C.R.E.E.P. , a song that totally split fans of the band who loved it & loathed it in equal measures. It was heavily rumoured it was written about Morrissey but Smith denied it. Brix Smith said later on that Morrissey used to send fawning sycophantic fan letters to Mark on a regular basis who jokingly said one day he'd publish them.
Also around this time Mark was contacted by a young ballet dancer called Michael Clarke who wanted permission to use songs by The Fall during his show. Smith agreed and liked what he saw and the two of them appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC performing Lay Of The Land with Clarke wearing pants with the arse cut out of them. Smith said that the rest of the bands parents had tuned into the show to see them playing on TV only realise the band were barely visible at the back of the stage & all they could see was Michael Clarke with his arse hanging out. At the end of the performance a pantomime horse was pulled onstage & had cartons of milk shoved down it's throat.
Also joining The Fall around this time was Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes who lent his vocals to three of the songs on the album

Songs You Need:

Lay Of The Land - A fantastic pounding bassline that drills it's way into your skull and refuses to leave it , It's even got something that resembles a guitar solo in it .....BOOM

2 x 4 - Another catchy song dominated by a fantastic bassline , I'm surprised it was never released as a single.

Copped It - The slightly off kilter guitars added with Gavin Friday's vocals really give this song an abrasive twist. This song is really representative of what The Fall of this era did best , commercial rock songs with a slight subversiveness to give them a real sinister edge.

Slang King - Kind of like an old style Fall song but Brix's vocal harmonies and the swathes of keyboards floating over the top of it make this much more listenable.

Craigness - Craigness is one of those songs where you can never remember the title of it but you recognise how it sounds the moment you hear it. Kind of like 'Oh it's THIS one'. I love the simpleness of this song. Just a simple jangly riff repeated over & over with Smith talking about a neighbour with one eye & blond curls.Then towards the end the drums kick in to turn the song into some kind of 70s glam rock stomp.

C.R.E.E.P. - Even if it isn't about Morrissey it's still one of the most catchiest songs the Fall have ever written with some nice vocal harmonies from Brix.

Verdict: The Wonderful And Frightening World Of The Fall is a great place to start if you've never listened to anything by the band before. It's much more pop orientated than anything the band have done before but it still retains elements of the things that made The Fall great in the past. It's a commercial album , but it's a commercial album on the bands own terms. Smith said himself at the time he'd spent 6 years being the starving serious artist and it was time to have some fun. A wonderful album bursting full of twisted pop gems.
8/10

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