Hex Enduction Hour (Expanded Deluxe Edition) [Remaster]

Performer: The Fall
Engineer: Tony J. Sutcliffe
Producer: Richard Mazda; Mark E. Smith; Dale Griffin
Distributor: Ryko Distribution

Notes: The Fall: Craig Scanlon (vocals, guitar, piano); Mark E. Smith (vocals guitar, tapes); Steve Hanley (vocals, bass); Karl Burns (vocals, drums, tapes); Kay Carroll (vocals, percussion); Marc Riley (guitar, electric piano, organ); Paul Hanley (guitar, drums). The Fall: Craig Scanlon (vocals, guitar, piano); Mark E. Smith (vocals, guitar, tapes); Steve Hanley (vocals, bass guitar); Karl Burns (vocals, drums, tapes); Kay Carroll (vocals, percussion); Marc Riley, Paul Hanley (guitar, drums). The Fall already had a slew of brilliant records under their belt by the time Hex Enduction Hour emerged, but when it did, the result was a bona fide classic on all fronts. Honing the vicious edge of his lyrics to a new level of ability, Smith led his by-now seasoned band -- at this time sporting the double-drumming lineup of Paul Hanley and Karl Burns -- to create a literal hour's worth of entertaining bile. The Marc Riley/Craig Scanlon team had even more of a clattering, industrial edge than before, now inventing its own style of riff and melody that any number of later groups would borrow, with varying degrees of success. "Iceland" itself tips its hat toward where part of the album was recorded, and it's little surprise that the Sugarcubes and any number of contemporaneous bands from that country ended up with a deep Fall fetish. Of the many song highlights, perhaps the most notorious was the opening "The Classical," an art rock groove like no other, racketing around with heavy-duty beats and stabbing bass from Steve Hanley. Apparently, the band was on the verge of signing with Motown, at least until they heard Smith delivering the poisonous line, "Where are the obligatory niggers?/Hey there, f*ckface!" Politically correct or not, it set the tone for the misanthropic assault of the entire album, including the hilarious dressing down of "misunderstood" rock critics, "Hip Priest" ("He...is...not...ap-PRE-ciated!") and the targeting-everyone attack "Who Makes the Nazis?" Musically, all kinds of approaches are assayed and the results are a triumph throughout, from "Hip Priest" and its tense exchange between slow, dark mood and sudden guitar bursts to the motorik drone touch of "Fortress/Deer Park." As a concluding anti-anthem, "And This Day" ranks up with "The N.W.R.A.," ten minutes of ramalama genius. ~ Ned Raggett Seminal British post-punks the Fall have been through so many stylistic and personnel changes that it's easy to forget the unadulterated fury that marked the band's early recordings. HEX INDUCTION HOUR features the classic late-'70s lineup, full of scratchy, occasionally discordant guitars, forcefully spastic rhythms and Mark E. Smith's trademark rants that combine the punk aesthetic with unfettered beat poetry. Smith's narratives are often difficult to follow, but like much great poetry, it's the gestalt that matters most. HEX ENDUCTION HOUR features some of the best-known songs from the Fall's early period, including low-key 6/8 "Hip Priest" and the roaring "The Classical," making it a must-have for fans of the group's punkier side.

Spin (5/01, p.110) - Ranked #24 in Spin's "50 Most Essential Punk Records" - "...60 minutes of furious, fractured poems about isolation, fascism, and time warps, set to aberrant riffs that hammer like the fists of winter." Uncut (p.89) - 5 stars out of 5 - "The Fall have proven to be among the densest, most durable metals in rock's periodic table, and HEX may well be their masterpiece." Mojo (Publisher) (p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 - "[I]t boasts glacial calm, volcanic vitriol and elfin weirdness aplenty." Record Collector (magazine) (p.94) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "It's certainly Mark E Smith at the height of his lyrical powers, with a complex and funny narrative tale of a poacher whose rifle misfires..."

A crucial inspiration to several generations of bands, the Fall virtually defined the late-1970s UK post-punk sound. Fall vocalist Mark E. Smith's sung/spoken rants may owe more to beat poetry than rock & roll, but his sociopolitical iconoclasm and the band's angular, cutting riffs and rhythms placed them squarely at the forefront of Britain's first major post-Pistols musical movement. In the '80s, their rough, guitar-based sounded expanded with the introduction of keyboards and more sophisticated production (largely due to the arrival of Smith's wife Brix as a band member), and personnel came and went, but Smith kept his ragtag rock army soldiering on all the way into the 21st century.

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