They’ve had their wobbles, The Fall. It was way back in 1982 when Mark E Smith, tired of constant impecunity, first considered splitting the band up. Seven years later, The Fall nearly fell apart again, when Smith sacked half its members midway through an Australian tour. Then, in ’93, the band lost a major label deal; in ’98, drunken chaos and intra-band fighting landed Smith in an American jail; and in 2001, the guy went bankrupt.
So, it’s a relief that The Fall is even in existence at this point, let alone thriving. Yet Smith’s profile has rarely been higher – a result of being John Peel’s favourite musician – while the current Fall line-up is as potent as any of its predecessors, Smith having found three hungry young musicians (guitarist Ben Pritchard, bassist Steven Trafford and drummer Spencer Birtwistle) prepared to do his gruffly-imparted bidding, and pooled their talents with his own and that of keyboardist/wife Eleni. Smith, of course, has a consistent record of bullying anonymous men and women into making music that sounds uniquely primitive, intense and vital: that sounds, above all, like The Fall.
The Fall sound a lot like The Fall tonight, and it is good. Given the recent BBC retrospective and the imminent release of all 24 Peel Sessions as a compilation, you might expect a few classics and crowd-pleasers but, perverse as ever, Smith instead guides the band through a set heavy on material from a brand-new album due in the summer. Of the main set, only a single song ("Wrong Place, Right Time") represents the band’s pre-1998 oeuvre, confirming that there’ll be no reliving of past glories here.
The happy result is that the new Fall sound fresher than any of the contemporary art-rock arrivistes who’ve borrowed Smith’s MO. Indeed, in "Blindness", they’ve produced a song the equal of anything in the gem-strewn back catalogue. Built around a metronomic, Can-style beat and a bassline that suggests a fleet of fighter aircraft taking off, "Blindness" addresses the trauma of being followed and harassed by the visually impaired (“Blind man! Have mercy on me!”). We’ve got three words for you, people: business as usual.
Elsewhere, The Fall sound exquisitely vicious as they grind – and yes, the word is “grind” – through the freshly-minted likes of "Pacifying Joint" and "Bo Doodak" (sometimes the titles are enough), while a gentler side is revealed on "Janet, Johnny and James" and "Ride Away". Smith’s gift for strange and brilliant cover versions also finds expression, on a rousing version of The Move’s "I Can Hear The Grass Grow".
A climax is reached with an encore of the evergreen "Big New Prinz", and as the words “He is not appreciated!” echo in our heads, the imminent Monday morning seems suddenly not to matter. Really, one can hardly ask for more. So yes, Mark E Smith might be a stern taskmaster. He might be prone to erratic behaviour. He might even fall down the odd flight of stairs.
But his legend remains gloriously surefooted.
