The Fall - Your Future, Our Clutter

Six thousandth Fall LP on eight hundredth label

Domino’s Laurence Bell had wanted to sign The Fall for years. Thanks to Arctic Monkeys’ success, the moon was in alignment and YFOC now serves as the debut on one of the UK’s best indies.

Mark E Smith has not, you’ll be unsurprised to read, altered one bit. This record is perhaps the closest any of his last say, 10, have come to capturing The Fall as live entity. Tracks build on simple drum lines, before The Edge’s (great nickname) basslines erupt to form a foundation for long drones (only two tracks dip below five minutes) and menacing dirges. Showcase finds MES more indecipherable than ever, but he continually returns to the phrase “expats”, while Slippy Floor pairs an “encyclopaedia of building and plumbing” with the threat that “we’re gonna get married”. Glorious, cutting gibberish as usual. There’s even a Wanda Jackson cover (Funnel Of Love), in accordance with a long line of random “tributes”.

Most terrifying is Weather Report 2; suave for the first four minutes, mental after that, leaving a beat-less sprawl that culminates in the mournful refrain, “Nobody has ever called me Sir in my entire life.” This is where you could start to feel sorry for old Mark. Unless you’ve been in a band with him, presumably.

3 stars 3 stars 3 stars

Domino | WIGCD 245

Reviewed by Jake Kennedy
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