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My favourite Fall LP since The Unutterable, and certainly in my top ten Fall studio LPs (one has to recognise that time can change these things of course). The band give good performances throughout, the writing is good and overall I get the same sense of pleasure and fun that in my opinion hasn't been there since The Unutterable. The two bass player work very well.
That said, although I'm happy to hear the whole LP through, I have to confess that I've developed a habit of not listening to the opener, nor tracks 11- 14. Not that they are bad (as I've said, I really like everything on this LP) but rather for the simple fact that the remaining nine pieces - tracks 2 through to 10 - are so good and constitute a perfectly solid and coherent unit on their own. I've been listening to those nine tracks regularly.
There are three tracks that I especially love, and they are (in LP order):
Fall Sound: This LP's accessible classic; the one that every Fall fan will sing along to, the one that your friends won't mind too much, the one that will be on a TV advert near you at some time soon. Also gives us this LP's finest single moment, when Mark reads the inquiry 'wonderin' what's up?' before excitably proclaiming 'IT'S FALL SOUND!'.
Coaches And Horses: Just a nice jaunty tune, with a historical setting. My favourite yarn on the LP.
The Usher: Old-fashioned Fall song with the new-fangled Fall sound. Good stuff.
Special mentions also for writing a song about my twin passions of theology and cheese, for the the background cry of 'Cheese State' at the end of 'White Line Fever', for the bassline from 'Insult Song' and for lobbing 'Outro' onto the end of the album.
What a shame Mark E Smith never got to work with Spike Milligan.
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