The Fall is a band that exists without precedent. For 40 years, they have remained the chief creative output for the mercurial and often combative vocalist/songwriter Mark E. Smith, and in that time, the Fall have fulfilled the promise of the post-punk movement that they emerged from. The project continues to move forward with an almost cavalier disregard for their past accomplishments. A look at recent setlists from the band’s live performances show that, in spite of a rich and varied discography, the oldest original material that Smith and the current incarnation of the Fall will deign to play are songs from their 2007 album Reformation Post TLC.
With the band’s contemporaries like Peter Hook and the Buzzcocks content to while away their careers reliving former glories, the Fall’s indifference to the sound that made them known is almost admirable. But it does put the band’s recent material—like their new album, New Facts Emerge—at something of a disadvantage, because anyone discovering the Fall through this or other recent releases might rightfully wonder what all the fuss is about.
That’s, in part, because Smith’s current bandmates—the solid trio of guitarist Peter Greenway, bassist Dave Spurr, and drummer Keiron Melling, one of the Fall’s longest tenured lineups at 10 years and counting—haven’t made a concerted effort to revert back to a classic Fall sound. Theirs is a meaty, swollen approach to garage rock that leaves ample room for diversions into exploratory psych and shredded rockabilly, and these moments turn out to be the best on Emerge. On “Couple Vs Jobless Mid 30’s,” the band cycles through an array of moods, from a slow ooze to a stiff-legged shuffle to a slinky surf number. On the album closer, “Nine Out of Ten,” Greenway plays a hypnotic, overdriven guitar pattern alone for almost five-and-a-half minutes.
Another potential sticking point for any Fall fan, new or longtime, is the current state of Mark E. Smith’s voice. Long gone is the untrained yet undeniably charming timbre that barked, squealed, and crooned through his band’s most prominent work; it’s been replaced by a bilious and phlegmy growl struck by age (he turned 60 in March) and many, many cigarettes. It’s not an easy sound to get used to, but on much of the Fall’s recent music, it’s clear that Smith is aware of how he sounds. He seems to take pleasure in drawing out the syllables in a word like “folderol” (“Fol De Rol”) because it sounds especially menacing when he does it—and on the same tune, he gives the phrase “homo sapien electric” the same chilling effect by raising the volume and letting the moisture in his throat rattle away. However, he does settle down as the mood strikes him: As his band rat-a-tats behind him on “Groundsboy” and “Gibbus Gibson,” he sounds vaguely sweet, like a liquored-up uncle trying to sing a ballad at the karaoke bar, holding out notes and words to their breaking point.
What truth remains in John Peel’s oft-repeated comment about his favorite band (“They are always different; they are always the same”) is Smith’s love of sound. Not just the noise that a great rock group can make, but the possibilities available in the recording process. As co-producer of Emerge (with Melling), he gets especially playful, sending the last few seconds of “Victoria Train Station Massacre” into reverse and muffling the entirety of “O! ZZTRRK Man” with his voice stuck in the recesses of the song. It’s those little touches and turns, and Smith’s larger unpredictability, that keep this album from becoming another average entry into the catalog of a respected legacy act.
