The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour

Aug 14, 2008

Hailed by fans, critics, and even Mark E. Smith as their greatest long-player, Hex Enduction Hour receives another reissue - hard to believe that at one time the original on Kamera was hard-to-find and an untapped Fall-fan would have to settle for compilation Hip Priests & Kamerads.

The need for another reissue of Hex Enduction Hour with bonus tracks doubled on the epic Peel Sessions box-set is questionable...then again, following last year's sloppy Reformation Post TLC, the 256-page Grumpy Old Men-style autobiography, and 2008's same-as-it-ever-was Imperial Wax Solvent, maybe it's best to stick with the Fall of yore?

There's probably a reason why Hex Enduction Hour is considered The Fall's definitive statement - as great as albums like Shiftwork and This Nation's Saving Grace are, it's hard to buy the tired anti-Riley sentiments revealed in Smith's sportswriter-penned Renegade - the loss of Marc Riley would impact on many a-Fall album until original member Martin Bramah returned (Brix as a pop-crutch who sometimes fitted the band).

Recorded in a Regal Cinema in Hitchin and Reykjavik in Iceland, this was the summation of early Fall, twin drummers backing long-term members S. Hanley and Scanlon as Riley stepped to the fore...M.E.S. even playing guitar himself! The epic 'Hip Priest' famously featured as the soundtrack of the serial killer in The Silence of the Lambs, while bands like Fiery Furnaces & Pavement have covered material from Hex.

The Fall lay down the future of indie rock with songs like 'Jawbone and the Air-Rifle' and 'Just Step S'ways' - songs that jangle and fit with their commercial work of the late Eighties. Smith is operating at the top of his game, dismissing all peers quite reasonably as "paste," following the scathing opening line, "Where are the obligatory niggers?/Hey there fuck-face!" - any charges of racism countered by the Kazoo-lead Krautrock of 'Who Makes the Nazis?' Even better, the heart of the LP features the two-part "Winter" - a song that might just be Smith's best lyric and the reason why he's so revered.

M.E.S. and whoever is in The Fall this week carry on regardless, though it is notable that Smith & employees often return to Hex-material, from a late Peel Session featuring 'Mere Pseud Mag. Ed' to performing 'Hip Priest' on a rare best-of performance in Blackpool, to last year's surprising encore of 'Just Step S'Ways' in Oxford.

There is a notion that Smith is just making the same record over and over again...certainly since the early 1990s, most Fall albums are only 50 - 75% there, sometimes more/sometimes less. The latest line-ups of the band can hardly stay on stage for an hour, let alone a Hex Enduction Hour. You're safer with this reissue (again).

Jason A Parkes

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