With a deliberately rattling sound, leaning against garage rock, rockabilly and punk, The Fall, under the inspired leadership of frontman and self-proclaimed intellectual Mark E. Smith, has been following its own path since the late seventies. Smith does this rather sneering and kicking (against anything or anyone) than singing on an oeuvre of dozens of records that can now hardly be kept up. Partly
… around the death of his biggest fan John Peel, Smith seemed, with a number of missing teeth and rarely sober appearance, to have lost his way a bit and to become a pariflage in himself. On Fall Heads Roll he ruthlessly takes revenge and orates and spits like never before. Remarkable are the solid rock riffs that he once maligned and often form the backdrop for his biting monologues. Fortunately it also rattles on all sides and this umpteenth line-up of The Fall sounds like old-school filth, like a long nose to everything that smells of false pretension. (MR)more
