Fall heads were to roll the following year when MES sacked the entire band (apart from his wife). This album sees The Fall in punky rollicking mode for the most part, interspersed with some more tender moments. Not the greatest Fall of the decade but still beats of most of the competition with a shitty stick. In fact many of the songs are available in better versions elsewhere, Peel sessions, Mixing it session, live versions). Some of the lesser known tracks are the most satisfying, if, like me you have heard lots of alternate versions.
The first great tune is Pacifying Joint, a basic riff hammered along with MES' impenetrable lyrics, which like many of the songs on this album (and others) appear nonsensical but manage to convey a mood or even a outlook (how does he do this?).
In a contemporaneous interview MES described this song as being about ' a teenager who is looking for a place he can sit down to and eat carrots and meat!' Midnight In Aspen references Hunter S Thompson and contains a line about pointing a bestest rifle at the stars Orion but only rebounding the shot off of satellites, a Fall Classic.
Assume is another great tune which MES says is about 'Humans, aircraft, rabbits and that kind of thing'.
Blindness and What about us? are the best songs on this album, although best heard elsewhere, Blindness conjures a draconian new labour state (ASBO's) that punishes those who stay out late, and smokers whilst imagining the stay at home alternative as a horror of the mind 'the flat is evil and full of Calvary and cavalry', whilst What about us? appears to be about a refugee rabbit who wants Harold Shipman to administer morphine to him!!!
This was a popular Fall riding on the success of COTC, and filling venues, shitting on the competition from a great height. At the time MES referred to Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party as 'fucking bank clerks'. A big fuck off to two groups who profess their love of The Fall.
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