The Fall - Box Set

It’s The New Thing

For someone not exactly keen on wallowing in past ‘glories’, Mark Edward Smith don’t half release a lot of compilations and reissues. That said, whether the notoriously taciturn frontman of the inventive and often near-impenetrable Fall has any say in reissue matters is debatable. In any case, The Fall’s 30-plus-year career has so many highlights that a compilation offers a suitably satisfying grab-bag way to experience the changing atmospheres and fixations of the various line-ups over the years without having to plough through their 712 official albums (and another one just came out as you read that sentence).

This five-disc box set features 92 newly remastered tracks – mostly the ones you’d expect, although there are smatterings of alternate versions and demos throughout the first four discs, a chronology of the band’s career up to 2005. Disc One’s New Puritan is endearingly lo-fi, even by The Fall’s standards, and the fourth CD (1998-2005) is dotted with remixes and alternate takes. Add in RC contributor Daryl Easlea’s liner notes, a smart brick-themed box and ‘Live Rarities’ fifth disc and there’s enough keep any Fall obsessive happy; or, as happy as it’s possible to be when your musical appreciation revolves in part round the changing whims and whistles of Smith’s crackpot majesty.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Sanctuary Records | CMXBX 1558 (5-CD)

Reviewed by Joe Shooman
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