The Fall — The Marshall Suite
I guess you can see this as one more the more instant, approachable and concise of The Fall 1990's albums. As through-out the track lengths don’t go much above the two to three minute mark, and also nearly all of the songs here have a fairly tight, memorable and guitar driven sound, which is ever so often ribbed by techno influenced beats and electroinca textures. The album opens with ‘Touch Sensitive' which is focused, powerful and euphoric yet slightly sleazed jab of garage rock meets Velvet Underground churn. As the album progresses its stomps, throbs, and ever so often dip into slower more moody waters, but for the most part the album keeps up it’s momentum and power. Mainly this is an up-beat often snarling record with Mark E smith vocals & lyrics in fine & focused form. A few of my favourite moments come in the form of "(Jung Nev's) Antidotes", which utilizes looped & dramatic strings textures, and huge electro fried crashing drums which are all weaved by Smith's echo-laden rants & manic chattering. “The Crying Marshal” which links together buzzing wasp like guitar textures with bombastic techno meets almost hip-hop beat structures, which are laced with grimy ‘n’ sleazed gone northern Prodigy like electronics & atmospheric synth banks.
The album only really seems to lose it’s way a little in the last two or three tracks as we have the rather sterile techno jaunting keyboards of “On My Own”, which just sounds like Smith ranting over a wavering & wonky mid 1990’s pop techno b side. And the last track “Tom Raggazzi(Finale) which is frankly awful with it’s mixture of cod reggae guitar chugs, haywire vocoder elements and a rather wondering structure.
So lets move onto the extras with this new edition: First up we have the second cd which takes in firstly six or so dance remixes & alternative B side versions of album tracks- these are interesting enough, but as there’s nothing wholly new here it really only warrants two or three plays through. After these tracks we have five tracks from a Peel session, and these find album tracks in a much cruder, lo-fi, more guitar based form; though there are some great high-wire & edgy electronic elements here to. All in all these live tracks are great, & give you a feeling of what the whole album might have sounded like if they’d gone for a more punchy & crude mix on the album.
Disc three takes a fairly, short, swift but enjoyable eight track live set that was recorded for Xfm radio station in April 1999. This set conists of mainly of “The Marshall Suite” originals, but there a few none album tracks here too. The sound here is more lo-fi & pump-up with a basic & electronic-less guitar, bass, drums backing to Smith’s ranting to snarled vocals which are very high in the mix & sometimes have a bit off echo & effect added to them. All told it’s a worthy edition to the set, and it shows the original albums tracks in a less controlled & studio reined manner.
Finishing off the set with have a 12 page booklet which finds Mojo's Daryl Easlea discussing & charting the time around the album, it’s making & it’s critical impact at it’s time of original release. The whole set comes in a unfolding card slip case which I guess looks a little like a cd sized vinyl packaging- this is ok through I’ve found if your not carefully you can do damage to the card packaging by slipping the discs in and out…I feel a standard jewel case might have been better, but this is just a minor quibble.
All told this is another well thought-out, and lovingly put together reissue of a worthy late 90’s Fall album. And as the original albums fairly concise, consistent & memorable this is a very good starting point for those who are new to this very distinctive band.