Fall (post-1985 / compilations): Search & Destroy

Post 85?

Get the A-sides comp (although the bonus tracks on the Beggars Banquet reissue CDs have a lot of these)

'The Frenz Experiment' (1988) is absolutely wonderful. Esp. 'Oswald Defence Lawyer', 'Athlete Cured', 'Bremen Nacht' and 'Guest Informant' (bonus track)

'Extricate' (1990) is very varied and widely acclaimed, although the last time I listened to it it didn't grab me as it once did

'Blood Outta Stone' (1990) is an EP track collected somewhere which is great

'Shiftwork' (1991), following a big band clear-out, has a pared-down, mechanistic quality that's some people love. Stand out tracks: 'Edinburgh Man' and 'The Mixer'

I haven't heard enough stuff since then to recommend anything after that, other than the following tracks that spring to mind:

Their cover of 'Kimble'
'Behind the Counter'
'F/olding Money'

Have a look here and here for other opinions.

the "unutterable" album remains on of my faves... there are a few stinkers on it but it's overall pretty solid. with this one, the machinery finally clicks (no pun intended) with the guitars and drums. some nice vox on it as well. "marshall suite" is good also.

All the mid 80s stuff is pretty smart ... from Hexenduction Hour thru Perverted by Language, W'ful F'ing Wrld, This N'ns S'vng Grace, and even Bend Sinister ... after that things went downhill a bit, not that it stopped me from buying all their LPs... 90's favourites were Infotainment Scan & Middle Class Revolt - As good as anything they've done ... And just listen to MES's self produced cover of Lost In Music - Ahh, genius at work...

Best Fall drummer = Karl Burns. The two-drum line up with P. Hanley was great live. Didn't Burns originally leave when MES set his coat on fire in a pub? Sounds likely.

My favorite MES moment - backstage somewhere or other (Lyceum?) :

Friend Of Mine : "Mark, what's Middlemass about?" MES (aggressively) : "People like YOU"

The Pinefox's question I do not at all understand. What these musicmakers have "in common" is that Nick D likes them. What else do they need?

Perhaps one reason I say this, by the way, is that ND strikes me as someone who does try to make things add up - who thinks long and hard about what he likes and why he likes it. So I thought he might have some interesting things to say here.

Anyway, yes, The Greatest Hit is 'grate'. I have the compilation CD which has all the singles too. Fine stuff, nicely underproduced with a nice swirly organ sound - best track - "Dumb Magician" with a completely nutz guitar solo which swoops in out of the blue for about 10 seconds or so half way thru.

I only really know 80s fall, is it ok if I ask here what are the can’t miss post-80s fall albums? I might get to them all eventually.

i'm not any kind of expert on that period but "fall heads roll" is a real good one

I only really know 80s fall, is it ok if I ask here what are the can’t miss post-80s fall albums? I might get to them all eventually.

Excellent post.

just cobbled together a slightly capricious sample of tracks from the 90s onward *not* included in the list above.

Reptilian! Mythical! Sea-Tremors!

confined myself to one per album but allowed myself some latitude for singles not on the original album tho now on “deluxe” streaming album listings eg Ed’s Babe, Calendar and I Wake Up in the City (Calendar important for the whole “mirror psychosis” refractive reflection motivs in later Fall) (I Wake Up in the City important for uh the lyric “Even Jesus had a tail, General Custer was the same, and that old dollar bill came out backwards in the machine”)

tried to avoid obvious generally compiled stuff like Free Range but didn’t stick hard and fast to that.

oh also included a track off The Post Nearly Man, which i love, but isn’t strictly a Fall album, tho it uses the Ol’ Gang theme from Levitate on this particular track.

real new fall lp is a barnstormer absolute classic
the unutterable is excellent
imperial wax solvent is excellent
also have soft spot for infotainment scan / your future our clutter

the peel sessions box set released during this time and covering their whole career is wall to wall astonishing

coming round on are you missing are winner / Marshall suite /new facts

I love the fall though and would never write off any record you find great stuff on everything

thank you!

yeah I think "The Real New Fall LP" is maybe their best album overall, but I do get frustrated with the different mixes. like why does the American version just delete the bass line on "Recovery Kit"? it's so good!!

The albums mentioned above are the best of the post-1990 crop but I still find all of them an odd combination of absolute bangers and complete misses. I go for the two 90s compilations, "A Past Gone Mad" and "A World Bewitched". No overlap and they collect almost all the best stuff from that decade. I've put together my own 21st century comp in lieu of something official.

A World Bewitched is especially useful for containing a disc of B-sides and MES collaboration one-offs, many of which are not collected elsewhere.

I can't be the only one that did a double-take at this:

twenty years pass...

For me:
Code Selfish
A World Bewitched
Levitate
The Real New Fall LP
Your Future Our Clutter

The Peel Session with Blindness/Clasp Hands/What About Us/Grass Grow is so blindingly strong it preempts Fall Heads Roll almost completely

Special shoutout to the batch of bootleg recordings documenting the shambling-then-swaggering series of shows with the hastily-assembled US guys right after the mid-tour breakup, downloading each one as they happened was an incredible feeling of "news from the front"