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Fall in a Hole is most likely the Fall's defining live record, both because it is the classic Hex Enduction Hour line-up that is performing, as well as its over two-hour running time (on the 2006 reissue at least). The song choice is fantastic, with the majority of tracks coming from the albums Hex Enduction Hour and Room to Live, their most recent album and the album they were about to record respectively (although Fall in a Hole was released after Room to Live, the show was recorded just over a month before Room to Live was released). One interesting fact about the album is that it was recorded and produced by renowned New Zealand singer-songwriter / stroke victim Chris Knox. Anyway, back to The Fall. The performances are ace, with the band playing at their best, sloppily brilliant on "The Man Whose Head Expanded" (when I tried to figure out what song this reminded me of, I realized it was in fact about half of Slanted and Enchanted ), like a tight cohesive unit on ...

Room to Live was released in September of 1982, only seven months after Hex Enduction Hour, and as such the band's sound (or lineup, a rare occurrence for the band) does not change much between the two albums. However, the songs on Room to Live are still up there with The Fall's best, and the line-up is still top notch, powering their way through each one of the seven tracks. "Joker Hysterical Face" opens the album in typical Fall fashion, a strong bass riff, a barely fitting together guitar line, Mark E. Smith's ramblings, and about a minute in an easy going drum beat to keep it all from falling apart. The album's title track sounds just as much like The Fall as anything else on the album, with Mark E. Smith's lyrics detailing what he wants in life, nothing more than a place to live his life, which explains a lot about how uncompromising he has been with his music the past thirty years in The Fall. The bonus tracks consist of live tracks from the time p...

Hex Enduction Hour is considered by some to be the definitive Fall album, the first album to contain the dual drummer set-up of Paul Hanley and Karl Burns that helped separate The Fall from any other band, and songs that are among the band's best and most distinctive. However, it also may be the worst album to use when introducing someone to the Fall, for many of the same reasons, as the band learned in 1984 when Motown Records, interested in signing the band, asked for an example of their back catalog and when given Hex stated "I see no commercial in this band whatsoever." The album open with a song filled with Fall trademarks, "The Classical", which explodes open with both drummers pounding a rhythm along with Steve Hanley's bass riff, and soon are joined by an abrasive, ugly guitar line. Finally are Mark E. Smith's not sung but yelled vocals, lacking not only any sense of melody but also rhythm, that would be enough to turn away almost any new list...

Slates is the first Fall album to contain the same line-up as the one before it, the "classic" band, and it shows. Building on the sound of Grotesque, the 24 minute album, consisting of only six songs (I'll get to the bonus tracks later) is obviously the work of a band who knows what they're doing, and obviously led by Mark E. Smith. Battering rhythms on songs like "Prole Art Threat" lay underneath some of Mark E. Smith's most incoherent vocals, more spoken or yelled than sung, and occasionally Marc Riley can be heard speaking different words, mixed at almost the same volume, underneath, something that is somewhat common in Fall songs from the era, and yet it all manages to come together in a way no other band could manage. "Middle Mass" finds the Fall rather relaxed, which is still pretty driving by most bands' standards, and "An Older Lover" is another song driven by Paul Hanley's toms working with his brother Steve's...

Now this is The Fall! Grotesque (After the Gramme) is the first album featuring the full Riley, Scanlon, Hanley, and Hanley line-up that would remain through Room to Live (and without Riley through The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall) and define the Fall's classic sound in the first half of the eighties. This album features many of the band's trademarks fully intact for the first time, such as Mark E. Smith's ironic, sometimes confusing but almost great lyrics, delivered rambling and barely on beat, the cheesy keyboard presets that sit on the line between sincerity and parody, and the tight rhythm section of riff-delivering bass and guitar and perfectly on beat drums that someone manage to hold the band together. On top of finally developing the sound of The Fall, Grotesque also features some of Mark E. Smith's best songs, such as "New Face in Hell", which I can only imagine Stephen Malkmus listened to a dozen times before writing "Conduit ...

Here we have The Fall's first live album, but in true Fall fashion is still contains two new non-live tracks, "New Puritan" and "That Man". Totale's Turns finds a good line-up of The Fall playing average venues, such as a leisure center, where average people were in the crowd, and (not to sound like a pretentious ass) average people don't generally tend to view The Fall as a great band. Despite what I assume were less than receptive crowds, the band perform well, playing tracks from primarily their first two albums. Since I have already talked, or will talk, about the songs on this record, it comes down more to how they sound here. Mark E. Smith is at his Mark E. Smithiest, dripping with irony and almost yelling his lyrics into the microphone at times over the abrasive sound band. I would have liked the mix to sound a little nicer, but that may be a lot to ask for. At times the guitar is more muffled than I'd like below the drums, and the bass ...

Dragnet, The Fall's second album, shows a gradual step towards the experimental sound they are best known for, and establishes their trademark prolificacy and member shifting. The album was released the same year as Live At The Witch Trials, but yet only two members remain from the original Fall (Mark E. Smith and Marc Riley). This makes Dragnet the first Fall album to feature Craig Scanlon, whose guitar playing would remain an important part of The Fall's sound for years, and Steve Hanley, whose bass was an integral part of The Fall for the 19 years he spent in the band, a length of time second to only Smith himself. But enough about the lineup, it's time to talk about the music. It is Lo-Fi by intent, something I assume would have shocked me in 1979, but having heard Pavement, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, and (the audiophile's arch-nemesis) Iggy Pop's remaster of Raw Power, it's hard for lo-fi noise and buzzing to excited me as much as it used to, although I...

So here we are, the first Fall LP. Their punk influence is more noticeable here than on many subsequent albums, where they become more experimental and "artsy", and with Mark E. Smith being either 21 or 22, he not only growls with his usual fury but also the general disdain of youth. On top of that, the album was allegedly recorded in a single day, probably out of cost more than anything else, and so it can be assumed certain songs were performed live and with a short number of takes. Despite the time constraints, it still comes off as a strong LP filled with the energy of a young band, even if it isn't all that representative of The Fall as a whole. "Futures and Pasts" has always been a favorite of mine, particularly the Peel session version included as a bonus track on Disc 2. Another Peel Session track, "Put Away" from Dragnet, is also on this disc (as with all the other songs from both the sessions) is on Disc 2 and is also a personal. The re...

Hey There, I've decided to challenge myself. That challenge is, I am going to listen to all 28 albums by The Fall (plus certain live albums), including all reissue tracks and second discs included in reissues. I am going to view them all, in direct comparison with one another, and try to review them as best as I can both in general and within the Fall Catalog. Wish me luck!