The Fall – The Real New Fall LP (Formerly ‘Country On The Click’)

Playing to The Fall’s key strengths?glam rhythms, jagged riffs, obscure covers (Lee Hazlewood’s “Houston”, as popularised by Dean Martin) and lexicographic riddles (“Mike’s Love Xexagon”?)?this has to be Mark E Smith’s strongest set since 1999’s The Marshall Suite. “Contraflow” even revisits 1982’s rural-wary “Hard Life In Country”, just as “Theme From Sparta FC” stomps the same hooligan terrace as 1983’s classic “Kicker Conspiracy”. Great by Smith’s standards. Practically genius by everybody else’s.