Here we are, then. Re-Mit. The most recent studio album by The Fall, something that seemed like a fevered dream eleven months ago. I even remember Re-Mit coming out and reading some of the reviews at the time (I mean, shit, it was only a year and a half ago), before I really knew enough about The Fall to put them in any sort of context. It was warmly received, I think, and re-reading some reviews confirms that. Especially in comparison to Ersatz G.B., which a lot of people hated – a return to form for the lineup who had previously made the lukewarm but well-received Imperial Wax Solvent, and the actually really good Your Future Our Clutter.
But, y'know, I actually didn't mind Ersatz too much – it was a bracing little oddity of a record, actually, and a lot more fun to listen to than a very large number of Fall albums. To be honest I don't think I'm in to Re-Mit quite as much, but it's still pretty decent. The fourth album with the same lineup, and it feels like sort of a blend of all the things they've done previously. Imperial Wax Solvent's meandering aimlessness, Ersatz's weird unpredictability and Your Future Our Clutter's solid catchiness all come together but, unfortunately, it's not always the best examples of each that they've picked up and run with. It's good but, y'know, four albums in it just feels a bit stagnant.
I can imagine this is of some sort of appeal to the long-term Fall fan – after years of hanging on with them through the ups and downs, there's finally a comfortable middle ground. Spiky and weird post-punk that calls back to the classic Fall sound of the mid 80s, with plenty of retro-sounding synths, but far more consistent than the experimental, risk taking lineups of old, instead updated comfortably enough to outdo the modern crop of youngsters doing a fourth-rate retelling of the The Fall and their former and current 'peers'. By which I mean bands who were in the same place at the same time, because The Fall don't really have all that many peers. It's not the best music The Fall have ever made, but it's very, very, very far from being the worst. We'll stick on that. It makes for a record worth listening to every time, and a great live show. Everything is comfortable in Fall-land.
Which is fine, but is that really what we want The Fall to be? It's hard to say. I mean, every band is subject to hundreds or thousands of fan expectations and interpretations, but The Fall more than any other invite people to interpret them – their legacy, their meanings, their artistic directions – differently, and to want or expect something different from them based on that individual and highly personal interpretation. For me, whether I like the music or not, the whole point of The Fall seems to be that they should be confrontational and unpredictable, that they should be trying to push things outwards, further than anyone else is willing to. Like Fugazi, if Fugazi had been started by alcoholics and drug addicts instead of former straightedge kids.
I've actually been listening to a lot of Fugazi this week. I think I've mentioned Fugazi as a Fall comparison before, although only really in terms of live recordings – there are actually fundamental similarities between the bands, in amongst the glaringly obvious massive differences. Fugazi started out ten years after the Fall (although its members formed their first bands only a couple of years at the most after The Fall got together to read poetry to each other. Ian MacKaye is only five years younger than Smith, though you'd never guess from looking at them), and both seem to have similar outlooks on their music, in a way. Both bands have determinedly, over the course of their careers, pushed their music beyond what could possibly have been conceived of previously within the confines of their chosen genres – The Fall's punk and post-punk, Fugazi's hardcore and post-hardcore – pulling in seemingly incongruous influences from across the board.
There seemed to be a desire in both bands not to stagnate, although Mark E. Smith's way of doing this was to swap members in and out with himself as the all-knowing leader, whereas Fugazi's creative process was far more democratic, with the close connection between the members pushing them to always make something better. Despite that, they often ended up at the same points – there are moments in Fugazi's discography where if you zoned out for a second you could easily think you were listening to The Fall, and vice-versa.
Anyway, Fugazi have been on hiatus since 2003, and a hiatus isn't something you could ever imagine Mark E. Smith considering. Fugazi's last record was The Argument in 2001, and The Fall have put out at least twenty six studio recordings since then. In 2011, Joe Lally said in an interview with The AV Club that “The Argument was a great record that we should try and top. It’ll take some time to come together and everything. To do that, we’d have to, the way the four of us are, we would take quite some time, I think, re-associating ourselves musically, and then just letting it come about naturally, because it would have to be a natural thing.” The main reason for Fugazi to end their hiatus, it seems, would be to make a better record than their last one.
Improving over the last one is a big thing for Mark E. Smith, too – in his eyes, every Fall lineup is better than the last, every Fall album is the best they've ever done, whether it's true or not, whether he even believes it himself or not. But that quote from Lally just made me think about The Fall throughout their career – it's never been a case of taking the time to make sure everything's right, that the best possible record is made with the right people. It's a simple case of grab anyone to hand, squeeze an album's worth of songs out of them, rush it out, and say it's the best thing yet. Is that still the case, though? The Fall's release schedule has slowed down a bit in recent years, compared to their album-a-year heyday – is this due to age slowing down the creative flow, or is it because the band records when all the members are available, rather than whoever's available when the recording time is booked dictating who's actually on the record?
Either way. Every Fugazi album (except Instrument Soundtrack) is a classic – that's seven in total if you count 13 Songs. Have The Fall made seven 'classic' albums? Yes, they probably have, and you don't really have to be that generous to pick that many. But their hit rate, compared to Fugazi, is pretty dire. Fugazi wouldn't make a Re-Mit, a half-arsed conglomeration of the last three, that much is for sure.
It's sad, sort of, that the longer The Fall go on, the more they lose a lot of the accolades that they deserved in their earlier years. They're no longer the dangerous, innovative outsiders who changed members every couple of months and just felt like a whirlwind of punk chaos. They're just... enduring? They're an institution now, I guess, but you could probably have called them an institution before they got this safe.
That's the thing, innit. I might find Re-Mit to be a much more endurable, pleasing listen than, say, Dragnet, or even a legitimately great record like Hex, which still suffers from being inconsistent and occasionally badly produced and probably a bit too long, but there's not really much value in Re-Mit in comparison to either of those records, even the one I hated. Although Re-Mit's middle ground approach would make it a very easy listen for a first time Fall fan, why would you want to start a Fall fan off with Re-Mit? They'd be missing out on so much of what made The Fall great. Even if I hated Dragnet, it kept me hooked. Would I be able to say the same if the first things I'd heard were Ersatz and Re-Mit back to back? Probably not. Re-Mit, surely, mostly has value to the long-serving Fall fan, the ones who have paid their dues and now really, truly deserve something by their favourite band that's just gonna sound good live, isn't gonna make long-suffering partners leave the room in disgust, and will tide them over to the next one. Re-Mit is, to be fair, a pretty good Fall record. But it's not one I can see myself ever really wanting to listen to again. We can only dream of a shake up before next time.
Still. I've got The Remainderer left to go (and the newest live one), which I'm already sure I'm gonna love if the record is anywhere near as good as the stuff off it I've heard live. Maybe there's life in this Fall lineup yet.
