Ian Harrison

Select, November 1997

THE FALL: Levitate (Artful)

When Justine joined Suede at Reading for 'Implement Yeah!', they spoke for an entire generation forced to listen to The Fall during the '80s. The Fall's grudging, scrambled avant-rock has been a weeping sore on music for 20 years now, and like pre-Thatcher heavy industry, their productivity is implacable. On this 30th LP, they still sound like snotty outsiders trying to break their equipment. Whilst this is partly the most dance-friendly and synthetic production since 1993's 'The Infotainment Scan', 'The Quartet of Doc Shanley's bass drone shows Smith at his most dischordant. On 'Ten House of Eve', where junglism turns into AOR piano, he hisses: "Oh if only thou'st could, in a rap sort of style, understand." We won't.

This is a band as far away from the mainstream as ever with the confounding ability to come back sounding vital just when you least expect it.

4 out of 5 squares

And in the same issue they interview Brett Anderson of Suede:

"..it was very cyclical, having Justine up onstage at Reading. We played 'Implement, Yeah!', this Fall piss-take we used to do. The lyrics are all about Mark E Smith - 'That boy Smith's got lard for a tongue/He looks like a gun or a bun or a bung/He's a basket-case/ He's siren fodder/His face is odd and his voice is odder.'"