Dragnet

I like all about the Fall. It got here faster than expected, which is a good thing. Michael

I ordered a cheap, used copy of the 1999 COGVP113CD Cog Sinister/Voiceprint/IRS and it sounds good (remix-wise; the original album is... um... lo-fi, let's keep it at that) - this is NOT one of the infamous remasters done off a skipping vinyl - at least it doesn't sound like it.Now, for the music within. The Fall have always been known for mixing punk sensibilities with Can's avant-jam-rock, rockabilly, and the Velvet Underground's primitive protopunk. This album is their first to very much suit that template - a very primitive-sounding, rhythmic, proplsive post-punk record that mixes Can's rhythms with strands of rockabilly ("A Figure Walks") and punk ("Printhead"). Many seem to think of Dragnet as very dark, but that's not entirely true - although songs like "Muzorewi's Daughter", the especially sinister "Spectre vs Rector", the hilarious "Before the Moon Falls", and "Flat of Angles" are pretty ominous, a good half of this record is surprisingly quirky and pretty upbeat - the groovy "Psykick Dancehall", the totally upbeat "Your Heart Out" and playful numbers like "Dice Man" and "Choc-Stock" are lighthearted in both lyrics and music.I guess you could sum this entire gloriously raw record by looking at the cover: a pastiche of the dark and ominous and the joyously arrogant. Although Mark Smith isn't quite at his lyrical best on this one, his lyrics add depth to the diverse, interesting music herein.

I'm a big fan of classic post-punk and early new wave and The Fall is one of those bands that seems to stand on the outside of what others are doing, taking the punk aesthetic and carving away all the things they probably hate about music. That's why "The Fall" is a perfect name for this band. It's cathartic. This album is only their second, when they were carving something more substantial out of the repetitious noise of punk. This is what I like to call a "finding-yourself-and-getting-used-to-everything" album. It is a transition. You can sense that they are a band with only one album and they're all thinking "what now? Lets try some stuff." Interesting for Fall fans. Casual listeners should seek a compilation. The Fall is just this melting pot of venom that you can plug into when you're having a tense day and you can let Mark E. Smith do all the yelling, complaining and shouting for you. I don't know what what he's talking about most times, but I understand why he's so tumultuous! If you are just starting to get into The Fall, go with a later album. My first album was "The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall," and it was remarkable. Their music is somewhat addictive.

Whichever year you first discovered the Fall, you MUST have this 1979 classic LP! This ranks as one of their best and has the first appearaince of Marc Riley on guitar, he is now a DJ on BBC radio and also formed his own band, Marc Riley and The Creepers, back in 1983, who are also well worth a listen. DRAGNET opens with PSYKICK DANCEHALL, with a spoof disco beat at the beginning and during the verses and a thoroughly shambolic but effective two-chord chorus. Mark E Smith, vocalist, rants, shouts and sings off key in his inimitable and unique style. DICE MAN, about the book, methinks, is a pastiche of Bo Diddley with its beat, and also clock the punkiness of PRINTHEAD, a surreal look at the music press from what I can decipher of the lyrics! Smith always throws around cryptic and indecipherable stories in the songs when he feels like it.What I also liked about this LP was the rough and ready production obviously done on a low budget. The CD version is better quality, obviously, but the roughness came across better on my old vinyl copy. Other sings of note - BEFORE THE MOON FALLS, a very repetitive, chugging 'epic'(says word with sarcasm) with a one-chord riff in places which works, if you don't know this song give up the guitar now. SPECTRE VS RECTOR, their version of The Exorcist; FLAT OF ANGLES, a harsh but sometimes poppy number with hints of early Pink Floyd which tells of the tribulations of living in a tower block; PUT AWAY, which shambles along sounding like a bad band rehearsal and is a story of prison. On the CD, you also get ROWCHE RUMBLE, SECOND DARK AGE and another take on PSYKICK DANCEHALL which is actually sharper and ballsier than the album version. These tracks are off a 1979 single release which did well that year. Overall, great to see that this post-punk classic is available on CD again for Fall fans old and young to enjoy. If you're into bands like The Hives and The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand, give The Fall a listen so you can see where they got it all from!

This is The Fall's second album - the lineup which recorded their debut "Live at the Witch Trials" fell apart, and bandleader Mark Smith recruited mostly-new working-class lads into his band, which was now more guitar-based and Velvet Underground-influenced. They recorded this album which was generally thought to be so far-out and abrasive that it was "practically unlistenable".This 2004 edition is undoubtably definitive. It sounds much better than the previous CD issue that I have (not that that one was especially bad). I think that the sound, the full psyched-out fractured glory the band was after, comes through much stronger than it has before. All instruments are distinctly audible and the "muddy, distant" sound the album was formerly noted for is no hindrence to being moved by this music. For the first time, I find myself transfixed by the album.It's a strong, wild, imaginative album. The band's time is not rock-solid but it's not bad either. Rock and rockabilly rythms collide with guitar drone and primal rhythms to create a mood of unease - kinetically spikey unease. Influenced somewhat by Captain Beefheart and Public Image Limited along with the Velvets but going further in many directions than those bands did, this record is a real acheivement. As is its sonic restoration.