The Fall: This Nation's Saving Grace [BEGGARS BANQUET]

Why you'll love it

This remastered reissue was cut from high-definition files. In 2002 Pitchfork placed the album 13th on its list of the best albums of the 1980s, and Brix Smith and Steve Hanley both count it among the band's finest.

This edition

• Remastered
• Mastered from high-definition files

About the album

The Fall had spent the early 80s making records that didn't so much invite you in as dare you to stay. Then came 1985, a reshuffled line-up and a summer in a London studio with producer John Leckie, and Mark E. Smith's band turned up with hooks. Proper guitar hooks, the kind you hum on the bus.

Brix Smith's guitar gives the record its bright, wiry pop edge, Steve Hanley's bass is back in its rightful place after a short break from the band, and classically trained Simon Rogers adds guitar and keyboards. "Mansion" eases you in, "Bombast" charges straight out of it, "Spoilt Victorian Child" and "L.A." lock into hypnotic grooves, and "Paint Work" drifts off somewhere stranger. Leckie, who produced three Fall albums in a row, keeps everything clear without sanding off the oddness.

The Guardian called it the band operating on the edge of the mainstream, at the peak of their accessibility and yet strangeness, which is about as neat a summary as anyone has managed. "I Am Damo Suzuki" is named for the singer of Can; writing a whole song about another band's frontman is a very Mark E. Smith way of sending a fan letter.

Also at Kops: more The Fall on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Beggars Banquet (cat# BBQLP 2134), a reissue of the 1985 album.