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All Music Guide Review:
Review by Ned Raggett
Kicking off with the thrilling bite of "Pay Your Rates," on Grotesque, the Fall really started hitting its stride, with Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon now a devastatingly effective combination, somehow managing to sound exactly placed between random sloppiness and perfect precision. The sharp rockabilly leads and random art rock racket thrived on both counts, with Smith as always the mad jester ripping into anything and everything while having a great time doing so. The final song of the album was especially fierce -- "The N.W.R.A.," short for "the north will rise again," Smith's own take on the long-standing "soft south/grim north" dichotomy in English society given extremely bitter life. Throughout the record, a slew of really good producers keep an eye on things -- besides the band themselves, there are Grant Showbiz, Geoff Travis, and Mayo Thompson all contributing. The end result is crisp without being polished, rough while packing its own smart punch (though "W. M. C.-Blob 59" intentionally sounds like it was recorded eight rooms over). Some nice variety starts appearing more and more in the Fall approach as well -- "C'n'C-s Mithering," a brilliant vivisection of California and its record business, and the attendant perception of the Fall themselves, relies on acoustic guitars instead of electric, creating an understated but still great groove. "Impression of J. Temperance" fits more immediately with what had come before, but the martial drums from Paul Hanley and Riley's freaky keyboards create some crazy atmospheres. Of course, Smith sends everything over the top, whether it's his rant about governments, dead neighbors, and scandals on the hilarious romp "New Face in Hell" or "In the Park." As a side note, the hilarious music scene caricatures on the front cover and wind-up liner notes add just the right level of acidic wit to the proceedings.
Mark Prindle Review:
Grotesque (After The Gramme) - Rough Trade 1980.
9 out of 10
STUDIO ALBUM #3 - by this point, Smith had both Scanlon and Hanley in the band, so feel free to consider this album "the beginning of The Fall as we now know them." This is where Mark admits to the world that his musical obsession was never punk rock, but rockabilly (which, if played fast enough, sounds a lot like punk rock - you understand our mistake). "Pay Your Rates," "English Scheme," "The Container Drivers," and "In The Park" are amateurish and very British, but they're still clearly based on American country/western music - like old Johnny Cash played really quickly. "New Face In Hell" and "Gramme Friday" are slower, but also obviously rooted in rockabilly. (In fact, in his rambling liner notes, Mark calls the music "Country and Northern.") Only four tracks remain; two are experimental (one of these - "C'n'C S mithering" is about the music business, and is truly amazing), and the other two are great early Fall epics, "The N.W.R.A." and "Impression of J. Temperance."
I find this an extremely pleasing album because so much of it sounds loose and improvised, especially in "The N.W.R.A.," when the musicians sort of only play when they feel like it, and the melody only changes after Mark alerts the band, "Switch!" It sounds like they had only played the songs a few times, and weren't exactly sure how they wanted them to go. Very fresh and somewhat exciting (especially when the droning "C'n'C S mithering" suddenly turns into the ridiculously speedy "The Container Drivers" - a masterpiece of a segue). Do buy it.
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