THE FALL – LIVE AT THE WITCH TRIALS (STEP FORWARD/CASTLE MUSIC)
Having aged surprisingly well the first album by The Fall is full of luscious snarl and a meandering execution destined and designed to alienate the most square. Emerging from the grime of Manchester this is a blunt statement, very representative of the factory mentality that emerges from such a world. As such it is a pleasingly working class affair, albeit it one with fancy artistic leanings you sense the authors would prefer to turn into tatters at the drop of beat off such an impression.
To buy into The Fall from the ground floor must have been a most exhilarating moment. Immediately from the off confusion rains supreme as Smith repeatedly declares how he is in a trance, seemingly bemused by the input from the most unfortunate of circumstances. This is not a higher state of mind, just a different method/mode of encoding and delivering the facts.
At any time in music history there is a true kudos due to any act bold enough to spew out this kind of statement from the beginning. It is scary to consider just how young these combatants would have been in comparison to how grizzly you would expect them all to be currently. From the off though you sense a mentality of who needs fans when an act is so self contained in itself, so self reliant and undesiring of adulation. Such as Jesus.
Benefiting from unique lyrical spitting it is not only this element that makes the record stand out as the playing is truly all over the shop, wonky and undisciplined in the most perfect manner. While punk was still shifting units with lowest common denominator product here was an act cleaning up on an artist level in comparison.
With “Rebellious Jukebox” their statement of arrival is made in explicit terms as everyone plays to their strengths in defiance of not resembling anyone or anything else on the playlist.
To suggest this band was ahead of its time would be both a grand understatement and disservice to the ingenuity of the outfit. I don’t think PIL ever reached the heights and invention of this opening effort.
By the time the album reaches “Music Scene” it has reached fruition as all bile gets extracted and arrives in ultimate measures. I cannot imagine a more damning composition being unleashed at such a time, encapsulating and eclipsing all its path in one foul swoop. For the win.
With its lyrical repetition and thundering convulsive beats “No Xmas For John Quays” sounds like the first hardcore song spewing out a time when punk was very much The Exploited and Anti Nowhere League clinging to a warped variation/conceit of what punk became. With its garbled and distorted delivery the words get lent a duel meaning/purpose basically born out of confusing the listener, which ultimately is a trick that they have been employing ever since.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered.
Thesaurus moment: prang.
The Fall
Step Forward
Castle Music
Having aged surprisingly well the first album by The Fall is full of luscious snarl and a meandering execution destined and designed to alienate the most square. Emerging from the grime of Manchester this is a blunt statement, very representative of the factory mentality that emerges from such a world. As such it is a pleasingly working class affair, albeit it one with fancy artistic leanings you sense the authors would prefer to turn into tatters at the drop of beat off such an impression.
To buy into The Fall from the ground floor must have been a most exhilarating moment. Immediately from the off confusion rains supreme as Smith repeatedly declares how he is in a trance, seemingly bemused by the input from the most unfortunate of circumstances. This is not a higher state of mind, just a different method/mode of encoding and delivering the facts.
At any time in music history there is a true kudos due to any act bold enough to spew out this kind of statement from the beginning. It is scary to consider just how young these combatants would have been in comparison to how grizzly you would expect them all to be currently. From the off though you sense a mentality of who needs fans when an act is so self contained in itself, so self reliant and undesiring of adulation. Such as Jesus.
Benefiting from unique lyrical spitting it is not only this element that makes the record stand out as the playing is truly all over the shop, wonky and undisciplined in the most perfect manner. While punk was still shifting units with lowest common denominator product here was an act cleaning up on an artist level in comparison.
With “Rebellious Jukebox” their statement of arrival is made in explicit terms as everyone plays to their strengths in defiance of not resembling anyone or anything else on the playlist.
To suggest this band was ahead of its time would be both a grand understatement and disservice to the ingenuity of the outfit. I don’t think PIL ever reached the heights and invention of this opening effort.
By the time the album reaches “Music Scene” it has reached fruition as all bile gets extracted and arrives in ultimate measures. I cannot imagine a more damning composition being unleashed at such a time, encapsulating and eclipsing all its path in one foul swoop. For the win.
With its lyrical repetition and thundering convulsive beats “No Xmas For John Quays” sounds like the first hardcore song spewing out a time when punk was very much The Exploited and Anti Nowhere League clinging to a warped variation/conceit of what punk became. With its garbled and distorted delivery the words get lent a duel meaning/purpose basically born out of confusing the listener, which ultimately is a trick that they have been employing ever since.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered.
Thesaurus moment: prang.
The Fall
Step Forward
Castle Music
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