| Reviews |
All Music Guide Review:
Review by Ned Raggett
The Fall's first post-Craig Scanlon album also introduced Julia Nagle, who took over keyboards from the departing Dave Bush and also contributed some guitar. Brix Smith and Karl Burns covered the rest of the guitar, and while Scanlon is missed, the end results work well enough. The crisp live edge to the recording is attractive, but oddly enough leaves a lot of space in the mix -- Mark E. Smith and Nagle's keyboards have pride of place along with Steven Hanley's bass guitar (give an ear to "Das Vulture Ans Ein Nutter-Wain" for an example). Smith himself seems to be searching for lyrics more than once, and while he comes up with a usual collection of acid-tongued zingers, other times he seems to be making vocal noise for the sake of it -- nothing wrong with that, but still, one expects more. Though the album takes a little while to get started, when it does, the winners start coming in droves, such as the attractive Smith/Brix duet "Spinetrap" and the nervy, brisk bite of "Oleano," which sounds like an endless alarm bringing out the paranoia. There's some fiery aggression flaring up more than once as well, as "He Pep!" and especially the lengthy, roaring clatter and blast of "Interlude/Chilinism" in particular show. The addition of another pretty/sharp exchange between Brix and Smith makes the latter all the more entertaining. In terms of unexpected covers, the Fall do have another winner -- Johnny Paycheck's "Stay Away (Old White Train)," sung by Smith with an appropriate if terribly amusing drawl. Speaking of singing -- more than once co-producer Mike Bennett shares the vocals with Smith, a surprising change to say the least! The odd geographical confusion track "Cheethan Hill" shows how well that can actually work, with Bennett taking a clearer lead while Smith, unsurprisingly, does the "sing from one room over" approach.
Mark Prindle Review:
The Light User Syndrome - Jet 1996.
8 out of 10
STUDIO ALBUM #18 - Another Fall album!!!! And (no surprise here) they're still really good! One bit of weirdness, though; longtime guitarist Craig Scanlon is GONE! I don't know where he went or why. He just left. Sigh. Still, we got Brix back! And Karl Burns! They haint gone no place!!!! Okay, then. This is one hell of an album for a band that's been around for nearly twenty years. It's very similar to Cerebral Caustic in that it's garagey and noisy and unrehearsed, but it's also got a lot more really memorable keyboard lines (especially in the gorgeous "Oleano"), more beautiful female background vocals (especially in the mindnumbingly catchy "Spinetrak," which kicks the crap out of any song currently in rotation at M-TV), and more rhythmic experimentation that gives the listener a sense that he's not just wasting his time on the same ol' generic pop crap that every other talentless shit band tries to shove up his ass on a daily basis. No, The Fall are still taking chances.
The stuff is still basically simple music, but the way that the bass and drums interact in minimalist trash rock like "D.I.Y. Meat" and "Das Vulture Ans Ein Nutter-Wain" is definitely worth noting. It's like the best of every possible Fall world - the exciting, noisy, anything-goes feel of Grotesque, the wonderful boy-girl vocal interplay of the A Sides singles, the dark undertones of Bend Sinister, and even that dancey Infotainment Scan groove - all shoved together to create a hip new sound that we, the hip alternative music fans of the world, have never heard before! Real exciting.
And it's clear that these guys have a future, too! They sound so excited and energetic playing these new numbers, it's incomprehensible to think that they're actually probably all pushing forty (In comparison, those "bad boys" Oasis sound like a bunch of tired old men!). In closing, I'll admit that I'd love to give The Light User Syndrome a 9, but it gets a little weaker near the end, with a hideous cover tune and some pretty uneventful mood pieces. Still, the first ten songs are amazing, and the drunken dipsy-doodle "Secession Man" closes the work on an appropriately hilarious note. Fifteen huzzahs to the world's most prolific and consistently impressive rock and roll band.
Oh yeah. Brix quit again during the tour for this album.
|
|
