Review: The Fall, Are You Are Missing Winner
Another year and another Fall album. The unexpected critical and fan acceptance of The Unutterable makes Are You Are Missing Winner the most anticipated Fall album in a long time, and features another completely revamped line-up, not that anyone but the most discerning Fall fanatic would notice.

As if in response to the anticipation, Mark E. Smith has characteristically done his best to quash expectations with homemade (read: bad) artwork, an illiterate title (presumably meant to read Are You Our Missing Winner?), and a thoroughly stripped down sound, though the early reports of production being notable only in its absence doesn't quite bear out. Surely, electronics have been dispensed with in favour of a thick, chunky electric guitar sound and acoustic drums, but the sound of Winner recalls Slates era Fall work, churning tunes and rockabilly beats. "My Ex-Classmates' Kids" thumps along with the best Fall raveups; "Bourgeois Town" melds some of the surrrealistic flaire of the Marshall Suite with a more focused musical direction; "The Acute" and "Hollow Mind," drawling, unnerving and acoustic, recall the subtler moments of the Brix era. The now-standard lengthy experimental section is taken up by the nine minute studio grab bag of "Ibis-Afro Man" featuring gibbering monkeys and a typically obtuse, barked narrative about eating a skunk.

Those hoping that "I Come and Stand At Every Door"'s appearance on Levitate signaled the dawn of a newer, more poigniant Mark E. Smith will be confounded; those who missed the shambling feel Perverted By Language will feel more at home.

Labels: reviews, the fall