The Fall
Live At The Witch Trials

THE REVIEW

It is said that Manchester is one of the ugliest cities in Europe. Is that true? For now, I only know that it is a typical industrial center, developed during the First Revolution, for more than a century and a half shrouded in the dense smoke billowing from the chimneys of its numerous factories… I imagine it as a sad, monotonous city, without much appeal, with a perpetually cloudy sky… A gray city. At least this is the picture that emerges from listening to “Live At The Witch Trials” by the Fall, who spent their existence in that grayness, in the late '70s, when Rock had become aware of the evils of modern civilization and translated them into music.

Thus, the New Wave was born, of which the Fall can qualify as distinguished representatives. Actually, I believe that their compositional and performing technique can serve as an example to define the New Wave. Or at least one of the many paths this Renaissance of Rock took.

In particular, the Fall stayed away from the typically “British” manifestations of this current (the depressed Dark-Punk of Joy Division and the romantic Synth-Pop of Ultravox), but also from the experimental excesses to which their fellow countrymen were dedicating themselves on the electronic front (Wire), Dub (P.I.L.), and Funk (Pop Group). The Fall looked overseas, focusing in particular on the state of Ohio, where the immense Pere Ubu resided: David Thomas' band thus remains the main and most immediate reference for the Fall's music. Like Ubu, the Fall made songs; like Ubu, the Fall disfigured these songs, with the force of syncopation, dissonance, eccentric harmonies, irregular counterpoints; like Ubu, the Fall transfigured the boredom of the daily routine into a “modern dance,” as neurotic as it is grotesque, where the diagnosis of existential malaise simultaneously provided an antidote to survive it. Compared to Pere Ubu, however, the Fall banned all expressionist deformation and surrealist digression, sticking to a fatalistic and disillusioned realism, totally devoid of escape routes, possibilities of catharsis, hopes for change. The Fall's tracks are the same from beginning to end: as they begin, they continue and end. They could go on indefinitely: they are the image of a state of affairs impossible to change. There is no trace of redemption, of revenge, of pride; only a handful of notes apathetically churned; the occasional rhythmic bursts and sporadic vocal outbursts seem deprived of their liberating power, executed more by convention than conviction, cynically absorbed by the indistinct and inexorable repetition of the sound cycle. Yet, there are no two loops played the same way: with each repetition, there is at least one instrument that falls out of sync, only to quickly fall back in line. But all these flaws do not alter the backbone of the tracks, which remains always the same. These “variations on a theme” function more or less as a diversion, to mask monotony, or to ward it off, as when trying to fool time with idiotic games, doodles, musings that lead nowhere.

The opening track “Frightened” immediately clarifies the band's aesthetic: a dragging rhythm (Karl Burns on drums and Marc Riley on bass); a scratched guitar (Martin Bramah); a minimal synth (Yvonne Pawlett); a disgusted voice (the moody Marc Smith)… and so on for 5 minutes. The influence of Velvet Underground is heavy. The rest of the album does not deviate from this model of "varied repetitiveness,” sometimes quickening the pace, sometimes staggering it (the convulsive Jazz-Punk of “Crap Rap/Like To Blow” and “No Xmas For John Quays”, two of their most irresistible numbers), sometimes stretching it (the Doors-like abyss of “Music Scene”). In the most convoluted episodes, one feels the interference of Captain Beefheart's irregular constructs.
The strength of the Fall, however, lies in their ability to dissect every mood relating to their condition: the range of moods goes from the despair of “Rebellious Jukebox,” to the indolence (occasionally upset by fleeting jolts) of “Mother-Sister,” to the suspension of “Industrial Estate.”The guitar timbre skillfully shifts from piercing to ramshackle, sometimes reaching peaks of hysteria worthy of a Sterling Morrison; Marc Smith's voice, in turn, navigates a wide range of registers: nasal, detached, declaimed, shabby, monotonous, but almost never tragic, because in the Fall there is no tragedy, only a necessary acknowledgment of the tedium… There is also room for revisiting classical genres, with the biting Rockabilly of “Underground Medicin”, the jaunty Garage-Rock of “Future Pasts” and “Psycho Mafia,” the crooked Kinks-like sketch of “Bingo Master.” If the nauseating chant of the final “Repetition” synthesizes, from the title, the philosophy of the band, the highlight of the work is perhaps “Two Steps Back,” a pale ode to the monotony of every day, to be absorbed on dull, winter, empty days, perhaps with a slight fever, letting oneself be hypnotized by the debilitating synthesized melody and the lazy voice of an increasingly bored Smith.

With the Fall, as simple in composition as they are sophisticated in execution, both popular and intellectual at the same time, the New Wave transforms into a background for lives that drag on wearily, with no upheavals, no turning points, no changes of direction other than mere illusions.