The Fall — UUROP VIII-XII Places In Sun & Winter, Son
I know it’s some what of a cliché, but live albums are often fairly hit & miss affairs- either offering up more creative, pumped-up, and rewarding version of album tracks. Or instead bland, unnecessary & badly recorded versions of the said same tracks. And for me this release really falls between the above two categories- with great-ness sitting along side the unnecessary.
The album opens with the very English sound of tolling church bells, before we quickly shift into slurred ‘n’ churning discordant edged riff of “Wings (with Bells)” which is topped with Mark E Smith's mumbled yet drunkly punchy & edgy vocals. The track mangers to nicely purvey both a feeling of slurred sleaze and angularly ugency- which is a difficult balance to perfect.
Up next we have “ Auto(2014) chip replace”, which finds many layers of Mr Smiths vocal whining, sliding & raging against each other over a back drop of locked down circular guitar riff picking, wonky/feed-back fuzzed organ grinds, and wondering yet inspired cheap keyboard stabs. Track three comes in the form of “Amorator”, and this is just a rather so-so take on this galloping garage band meets strutting surf rock track. From here on the album sort of shifts between inspired & effective, and the rather redundant, debilitated lo-fi, and unnecessary….and really tops the double header that started the album off.
So if you’ve enjoyed The Fall’s work over the last few years & fancy hearing live rendition of studio tracks, this is worth a look, as there are some worthy moments here- just don’t expect it all to be great!. All in all a rather mixed bag of a release…..here’s looking forward to the next studio album!