Album Results
Album Reviews
An underrated and hard-to-find Fall album, this 1992 release returned to a harder, more caustic band than found on the previous year's Shift Work. Slimmed down to a four- piece (with added keyboards by David Bush) and produced by Craig Leon and Simon Rogers, the Fall yet again returned with an experimental and menacing collection of songs. The centerpiece and only single off the album was "Free Range," a bit of Mark E. Smith's "prepsicognition" about the coming Balkan wars. "Pressure guilt! Grudge match!" Smith yelps, stringing together images and streams of consciousness. "It pays to talk to no-one!" Years later, it has the same chilling foresight of Yeats's "The Second Coming." Smith's writing was beginning to pare itself down to the essence, relying on repetition and imagery, while the backing of Scanlon, Wolstencroft, and Hanley were translating the feel of sequenced techno into their guitars and drum attack (especially on "Immortality" and "So Called Dangerous"). An album that improves with age. ~ Ted Mills, All Music Guide
Track Listing
| 1. The Birmingham School Of Business School |
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| 2. Free Range |
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| 3. Return |
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| 4. Time Enough At Last |
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| 5. Everything Hurtz |
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| 6. Immortality |
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| 7. Two-Face! |
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| 8. Just Waiting |
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| 9. So-Called Dangerous |
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| 10. Gentlemen's Agreement |
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| 11. Married, 2 Kids |
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| 12. Crew Filth |
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| 13. Ed's Babe: BONUS TRACK |
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| 14. Free Ranger: BONUS TRACK |
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| Featured Review | |
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Heartless KanYe West |
| When he announced that he would be putting rap to one side for his latest album and composing the whole thing using an 80's drum machine and singing in the style of Cher via the use of auto-tune software, many onlookers thought KanYe West had lost it. However, the results of KanYe's pop experiments, that on paper looked decidedly dodgy, have already produced one hit single and, if early reviews are anything to go by, one of KanYe's best albums. On his latest single, 'Heartless', KanYe continues the theme of the album '808's and Heartbreaks' by employing the use of the 808 drum machine and singing about, if you hadn't already guessed, Heartbreak. Although, as Kanye himself stated, the use of auto-tune is often associated with being 'wack', the application of the vocoder effect on 'Heartless' adds an extra depth to West's effective but limited speak singing. This proves to be a shrewd move as rapper's attempts to hit notes out of their range can often end in horrendous results; just ask Puff Daddy. Added to this the depth of lyrics, inspired by an emotionally turbulent year that saw the death of his mother and a break up with his fiancé, have more heartfelt punch than any of the predictable Hip Hop/R&B doing the rounds at the moment. Not many artists could pull it off but it seems '808's and Heartbreaks' has seamlessly moved KanYe West from Hip Hop King into the realm of pop pioneer without breaking a sweat. | |
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