Maddy Costa 

The Fall: Re-Mit – review

It's not going to win them any new fans, but devotees should be able to wring some pleasure out of another Fall album, writes Maddy Costa
  
  


Re-Mit begins with a minute of blithe, bubblegum indie-bop so generic you have to double-check you're listening to the Fall. It's a short-lived sensation: the second track, Sir William Wray, has a needling riff and aggressive drums and Mark E Smith growling variations on the title, the volume and violence escalating until the chanted backing vocals sound like incitements to a riot. And when that opening minute of music returns, in No Respects Rev, its cuteness could be an act of defiance, it's so at odds with Smith's sandpaper vocal, crackling impenetrably about a cove in Whitby and (probably) the evils of censorship. Like all the band's recent output, Re-Mit isn't going to win over anyone who isn't already a Fall devotee. They're too aggressively idiosyncratic for casual listeners – so it's just as well that their knot-filled yarn about a queue in an Italian airport (Jetplane) and disjointed mish-mash of squirming riffs that "could do with a fucking chorus" (Jam Song) repay close attention.

 

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