Product Description

The Fall are set to embark on an extensive UK tour during October as they promote Fall Heads Roll. The band, fronted by the incomparable Mark E. Smith, have enjoyed a career spanning almost 30 years and their new album finds them at their very best, with Smith sneering over tracks laden with garage rock guitar and pummelling rhythm sections. 14 tracks in total including "Ride Away", "Pacifying Joint", "What About Us", "Midnight Aspen", "Assume", "Midnight Aspen Reprise", "Blindness" and more.

Track Listing

1. Ride Away
2. Pacifying Joint
3. What About Us
4. Midnight Aspen
5. Assume
6. Aspen Reprise
7. Blindness
8. I Can Hear The Grass Grow
9. Bo Dimmeck
10. Ya Wanner
11. Clasp Hands
12. Early Days of Channel Fuehrer
13. Breaking The Rules
14. Trust In Me

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32057 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-03
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 56 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Forty-two line ups in some twenty eight years--but with gurning, prose-churning champion of invective jabberwocky Mark E Smith remaining constant at the helm--heads have indeed rolled within the ranks of interloping non-conformists The Fall. There has been, however, no loss of the band's conceptual objectivity. Heads Will Roll throws The Fall's idiot-savant oevre into sharper focus at a time when the band's profile--in the wake of the death of long term advocate John Peel--has never been higher. Cynics, therefore, may view the single release of a cover of Roy Woods' psych-pop classic "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" as commercial exploitation but Fall fans, as ever, will surely view any lofty chart placings as either entirely incidental or just another Mark E Smith double-bluff masterstroke. On the balance of probability The Fall fans are probably right; Smith's chatter of asbestos powered rifles, Bo Diddly, Heathrow airport, rubbish receptacles and Harold Shipman still marks The Fall out as rambling outsiders, although such is The Fall's extending influence that the band's organised garage-punk sound is now less of a shock than Smith's verbose spluttering. Brilliant but as cryptic as ever, Fall fans will chose their own favourite tracks. Will it be the rasping, solo JJ Burnel-style insistence of "Blindness", the nagging chant-along of "Pacifying Joint" or the punk police siren guitar of "Assume"? Or maybe the Gypsy Kings jam of "Early Days Of Channel Fuehrer"? Infuriatingly baffling. Who'd have it any other way? --Kevin Maidment

Customer Reviews

Yet another Fall classic
This is premium Fall, it sounds really fresh and revitalised after the troubled times of a few years back. Smith sounds fired up, the band are tight, the whole thing sounds like they are having fun again. For a band who've made more classic albums than most bands have songs, it's great to have such a brilliant new album. Heavy, rolling, locked-groove bass-lines, catchy tunes (well I think so), Smith is almost even singing at some points. Ride Away has choppy guitar and almost an oompah feel, but of course sounds like The Fall. Blindness lurches with menace, a bit like Big New Prinz. I can Hear The Grass grow would be in the charts, if I was in charge; it's a bit like Infotainment Scan period stuff. There's hints of Free range in all this too, and Dr Buck's Letter.

Job's a good'un!

Fall classic album 2005 alert....
While I'm of the persuasion that every Fall album is decent - 'Room to Live', 'Cerebral Caustic' & 'Are You Are Missing Winner?' have several moments - there are certain titles that stand out and join the classic Fall album set: 'Live at the Witch Trials', 'Grotesque (after the gramme)', 'Hex Enduction Hour', 'This Nation's Saving Grace', 'Bend Sinister', 'Extricate','Shiftwork', 'The Infotainment Scan', 'The Marshall Suite' & 'The Unutterable.' The obligatory line-up changes have occurred since the last classic double whammy of 'Marshall' & 'Unutterable' - as the last two Peel Sessions show, the most recent line up(s) have found a new Fall on rare form. Anyone who has seen them live recently - I had the pleasure in Stratford Upon Avon last week - will know this is another great version of The Fall. 2003's 'The Real New Fall LP - Formerly 'Country on the Click' was the first classic move, an album almost as good as this and one to add to the Fall classics list. The line-up almost survives here - Ben Pritchard (guitar/backing vocals), Eleni Poulou (synthesiser/vocals) and the ever present Mark E. Smith traded in David Milner abd Jim Watts for Spencer Birtwistle & Steve Trafford. Amazingly the progress from 2003 onwards has continued and 'Fall Heads Roll' shows the new Fall are as great as the old Fall. As much as I love the reissues of the albums I love, 'Fall Heads Roll' shows the contemporary version is the most important. I can't think of a Fall album I'd like to listen to more NOW...

These songs have been around a few years - live, the final Peel Session from 2004 and on the 'Interim' mini-LP - the latter perhaps working in a similar manner to something short and sweet like 'Slates.' It's all great, all a highlight - I even like 'Early Days of Channel Fuhrer' and the closing 'Trust in Me' (sung by Trafford?) Opener 'Ride Away' is fantastic, not sure why someone said it was awful - it clearly belongs to the 'Kimble'-side of the Fall! 'Pacifying Joint' is where the album kicks into life, Korg-drones against some of that angular garage-punk - it's like Elastica never happened. Lots of these songs are based around that tight garage rock sound, the excellent production exploiting the joys of these songs. 'Assume', 'Youwanner', 'Bo Demmick', the cover of The Move's 'I Can Hear the Grass Grow' and 'Clasp Hands' all fitting the bill and wiping the floor with such pretenders as The Storks, White Stripe & The Yeah Yeah Liars.

...& then there are the songs that join the ranks of the finest Fall-tracks - 'Midnight in Aspen' (reprised like 'Winter'), the epic kraut-garage of live favourite 'Blindness', and the tale of a rabbit from East Germany and Harold Shipman, 'What About Us?' - which has better keyboards and a slightly tighter arrangement than the prior Peel version (the 'Hop!Hop!Hop!' mantra coming in just at the end now).

'Fall Heads Roll' is a fantastic album and was a key highlight of 2005. The band are reportedly back in the studio again with Grant Showbiz ('Dragnet', 'Shiftwork', 'Country on the Click', Billy Bragg, Wilco)- a band in their prime after all these decades. Who'd believe?

A Classic Fall Album
I've followed The Fall for ages and this is one of their strongest albums. The opening track is unusual - they usually provide a very powerful and driving opening track so I guess this is something to stop them getting too predictable. The album as a whole is very good, every track is excellent and it is something you can listen to over and over again.

I find it difficult to decide if they have created a new Fall sound - as Smith has done in the past for example with Levitate - or if they have returned to the sound of a previous era. My conclusion is that this album takes all that was good about The Fall in the past and has bottled it, as if there was some essence of Fall that Smith just keeps making more and more pure.