The Fall — Re-Mit
Well on the whole I found the album rather hit & miss, yes there are great & effective Fall moments here, yet sadly there are also rather lazy & seemingly unfinished tracks here too. Things start off badly with “No Respects (Intro)" which is basically a rather bland slice of instrumental garage rock meets kraut rock synth throb. The track really could have come from any face-less indie band in the last 20 years.
Next is “Sir William Wray”, and this is a nice pumping & slightly wonky slice of garage punk rock, with almost surf guitar like edges & wondering synth purr. After this we have this almost comical surreal Strangers organ work meets pumping rock riff of “Kinder of Spine”, which finds in Mark E Smith fine foaming & bizarre form as he rants on about spiders. Then at track four we has one of the worse track here(and one of the all time lazy Fall tracks) “Noise”, which finds the band churning out a rather shape-less mix throbbing lo-fi electronics & bland Fall riff craft, as Smith mumbles & rants out a rather bland observational lyric about the bands guitarist.
Yet directly after this truly sloppy & awful track we have a true epic & edgy Fall track in the shape of “Hittite Man”. The track mixes fired-up & moody slide guitar tipped malevolence, with warbling & juddering synth trails. Here Smith lyrics sound focused, captivating & almost biblical as he talks about a man with white robes to the ground.
So to sum-up “Re-mit” is often a rather frustrating & decidedly mixed ride- ‘yes’ there are moments of greatness here, but sadly there’s too much sloppy & badly put together padding too. Certainly not the worse Fall album, but neither is it a classic Fall album either.