The Fall
Are You Are Missing Winner

How is The Fall's 2001 edition? Definitely very different from the previous year, given that Mark E Smith replaces all the band members (except himself, ça va sans dire) with a new lineup. The style also shifts sharply towards a propulsive and direct punk-rock.

Mark, just over forty, is already half toothless and accustomed to quenching his thirst directly from the bottle of whiskey, and this is evident in his somewhat slurred and rough vocal style. Despite this, the lion still roars and the songs convey a sense of indomitable energy, emphasized by a rhythm section that is both solid and pulsating.

The album's poetry expresses a sense of precarious inclusion in a society that drives the individual towards depression ("I've got the bourgeois blues," from the Lead Belly cover "Bourgeois Town"), with no possibility of fulfillment ("Kick the Can"). What remains is only the indomitable vitality of a person who has become indifferent to their own malaise.

It might happen to see Mark E Smith on stages across half of Europe, in smaller venues, such as at Interzona in Verona, where among the audience one might not notice an anonymous enthusiast who a few years later would review the album on a well-known portal dedicated to art inspired by the Muse. But that's another story.