THE FALL – Bury (7″, Domino)
Posted: May 24th, 2010, by JGRAM
At the end of the day the sad truth/reality was that this was the only release I bought on Record Store Day that I actually wanted beforehand. And I only got it out of good fortune when one of the Rough Trade clerks happened across some copies and did a shout out to the people in the queue to see if anybody wanted one. I swear half an hour before this moment I had seen a man the age of Mark E. Smith carrying a pile of about fifteen copies of this record to the counter. That should not have been allowed but in a way it all seems apt
Despite now being on their best record label for years The Fall artwork remains wonderfully incoherent, messy and looking tossed off in seconds. There are just some things that remain reassuringly constant.
“Bury” is another great slab of vinyl. Perversely it reminds me of a lo-fi version of “No One Knows” by Queens Of The Stone Age but it is also so much more. We have a Bury here in East Anglia but it is nothing in comparison to this.
In many ways The Fall is a better act than ever. Without doubt Mark E. Smith runs a tight ship and with its revolving door of musicians these days it’s not so much a band as an outfit with a squad mentality akin to the greatest football clubs. This is the modern way of doing things, deal with it. With this process in mind you can’t help but think in another life Smith might have made for a great football manager. Maybe Manchester has a successor for Fergie after all (pending a reverse Tevez dose of treachery).
Wonderful distortion welcomes this song into the world which is then promptly pursued by a fine stomp and seemingly random musings from Mr Smith. It’s all about Mr Smith. This is the stuff of legend, it still sounds great after all these years and uses terms such as “municipal buildings” which you will be hard pressed to unearth anywhere else in music. In a time when we need this music the most it truly comes to the plate and pays off tenfold.
Thesaurus moment: reliable.
JGRAM
JGram, friend of the stars, chartered accountant and pie enthusiast, likes nothing better than KICKING YOUR SKINNY ASS by way of a carefully-timed half-nelson followed by the CLOTHES LINE! OW! So never, never cross him. His dog Snowy is equally rockhard and will bite your lim bs off in the blink of an eye. And then paw your eyes out for blinking when he's biting you.