The Wonderful & Frightening World of the Fall

Released

The beginning of the Beggars Banquet era, my favorite period of Fall albums. We’ve got real drummers, Hanley and Scanlon in tandem with Brix, and Mark as mad as ever. It’s a kind of popular music now, in part because John Leckie has always excelled as presenting mayhem as method and can make a song narratively sensible. I think this sounds like a greatest hits album from a much better world. You can absolutely play this one in the car. What’s Mark mad about now! “It’ the Scotch end of the market now,” which I guess is about Orange Juice. “God-box,” conceived in the haze of love, preface by a cassette recording of Mark asking Brix what the song is. When Brix said “We call you Hitler and then kick you around like homogenized milk,” I felt that.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Suggestions
2nd cover

2nd

Agitation Free
The No Comprendo cover

The No Comprendo

Les Rita Mitsouko
Sextet cover

Sextet

A Certain Ratio
Made In Germany cover

Made In Germany

Amon Düül II
Alien Lanes cover

Alien Lanes

Guided by Voices