Spike Magazine

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gives them morphine…
Smith and his lyrics have generally grown more
arcane and opaque with age. While this has entrenched
the weird mystery, at times the scabrous social realism
and satire of old has been somewhat lost in recent years.
Here though, several themes of yore are re-examined to
great effect, and while of course there’s still great dollops
of the incomprehensibility that makes them what
they are, a little bit more sense seeps in. Smith may be
a fervent loather of all things nostalgic, this record is by
no means a rehash in any sense, and yet somehow some
of the best spirit of the old in The Fall is at work here.
One track, ‘Assume’, goes back to the old legacy
of fucking seriously with the English language, and
applying strange new laws onto the commonplace
populace that sound like they’ve been handed down
from some Norse Deity gone schizoid. “If you assume,
you are a Hu(l)me. If you half assume, you are a Hu(l)
me. If you don’t assume, you are a cap-it-an!!”. That
this damned and despised new category of humanity
could take its name from either the philosopher David
or the run-down district of Central Manchester (more
probably both, or neither) just adds to the disturbed
allure. Of equal importance – it’s aligned to a gigantic,
siren guitar sound that flattens all in its wake. Even if
Smith wasn’t around the band at all (and it can happen
if you go see them live; take it from me) instrumentally
alone this bludgeons the living crap out of any musical
BUY The Fall music online from and
opposition standing today.
Elsewhere, the song ‘Blindness’ delves into the extended,
grinding, inexorable Canny hypnotism they do
so well. The repetition in the music is a brilliant backdrop
to the meandering meditation on an unhealthy and
paranoid hatred of the narrator’s surroundings “The flat
is evil / and full of cavalry and Calvary”. At their best,
and they are at their best here, no-one can produce a
sound quite as menacing as The Fall. Unlike Slipknot
or assorted goth-goons, Smith has always known that
true horror ensues when emblazoned on and interwoven
with a background of mundanity. In ‘Blindness’, as
in ‘When The Moon Falls’, ‘City Hobgoblins’, ‘Hotel
Bloedel’ and ‘Bremen Nacht’ before it, they sound like
they’ve cracked open a scene of everyday life, and
found something unfathomably terrifying seeping out.
It’s unnerving and marvellous.
The many supernatural themes from previous forays
are also present in the deeply mysterious ‘Midnight
In Aspen’, though this time the backing is The Fall in
beautiful and subtle mode, and yes they can do that.
A gentle plucked arrangement introduces a delirious
description of what seems to be a man attempting to
summon spirits in the Swiss Alps by firing a rifle at
selected stars. For once, Smith’s periodic preoccupation
with the occult seems less to do with Lovecraft and
creeping terror, and more the benevolent engagement
of a great mind with what may be beyond. And for once
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