THE FALL’S recorded output is of such vastness that it is possible, like me, to be someone who has numerous Fall albums in your collection, and yet still have only a tiny fraction of their discography.
With the great Mark E Smith no longer among us, there is no more The Fall, but a chance to hear the man in his best element - on stage - is welcome, and given that gigs are off limits until, at the very least, the end of the year, the chance to feel you are at a live show is a piece of vicarious living that right now, feels good.
This set, recorded on Merseyside in the band’s earliest years, is filled with the stark, jagged, raw, stripped down to the bare bones post-punk, that is grimly, unsettlingly, atmospheric - the freedom of punk, and the anger as the three day week seventies gives way to the Thatcherism which is starting to take hold. It is quintessential to the sound of The Fall, and yet also recalls contemporaries like Crass, Conflict, even Bauhaus.
The Fall however are unmistakable, utterly unique, largely, if not exclusively down to Mark E Smith's poetry, a kind of Mancunian, working class, punk answer to Bob Dylan. His allusions and imagery may not always be obvious, but his delivery, his imagination and command of language, his manner of articulation, humour, and associations, always fire the imagination, and keep the attention riveted.
The music always has heft and groove - 'The NWRA' is The Velvet Underground if they were an English blues band; 'An Older Lover' is hypnotic in the interplay between Smith's voice and Marc Riley's guitar; while 'Rowche Rumble', the best known song here, has a nervy, frantic energy, that is thrilling.
The best concert you were never at? Possibly. The best gig you will be at for some time? Definitely.
