For purely Nineties nostalgia, it’s rather wonderful that the first thing we hear on this album is the bass playing of Mark “Hapless Boy Lard” Riley (who used to parody his own expulsion from The Fall with his Fall Diaries, every entry ending with “Must try harder!”). In fairness to Riley, Mark E Smith was fairly notorious for firing everybody, and for being a chaotic individual in general.
That sense of chaos pervades this album, with rough timings on the backing vocals and Smith’s almost casual attitude to half sung/half recited vocals. It owes a bit of a debt to Velvet Underground in sound, I think, but also there’s something of The Stranglers about it. Some songs are more “traditional” like Rebellious Jukebox, while others, like Crap Rap 2/Like To Blow is more a spoken word piece (and is indeed a crap rap).
No Christmas For John Quays (which clearly becomes “junkies” when Smith starts singing) starts with a kind of Tetris opener before going into some punky repetitive beats and chant-like chorus. The title track is a sub-minute bit of feedback and spoken word, while the album ends with The Music Scene, an 8-minute meander over a steady beat that just goes on, and on – easily one of the best tracks on the album.
Martin Bramah’s guitars, and Yvonne Pawley’s keyboards, add atonal sketchy elements to make the tracks even more uncomfortable, the whole effect is to give the sense of a group that cares little about what the critics and fashion says they should be doing.
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