These are relatively stable times for The Fall, with guitarist Pete Greenway and bassist Dave Spurr having clocked up an impressive nine years’ service in a group where some have lasted only one gig. But Prestwich’s most curmudgeonly band leader still doesn’t sound happy. “How bad are English musicians?” Mark E Smith asks, more than once, on Auto Chip 14-15. This could be just another example of MES provocation, but he then makes a disdainful remark about royalty payments on Fibre Book Troll – a title inspired by a well-known social media website.
Fall fans groan whenever a new LP is hailed as a ‘return to form’, but this – their 31st – is easily the best since 2007’s Reformation Post TLC. The group have written the sort of sharp garage rock…
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…nuggets that Smith is now best suited to, and he responds in kind – delivering clear vocals (by his standards) and plenty of the characteristic snarling that keeps us coming back.