The Unutterable

Having rocked up twenty-five years and over thirty albums of sometimes brilliant but always uncompromising progressive punk, Mark E. Smith's singular approach shows no sign of letting up. And while it doesn't come near to the dizzy heights reached on 1985's This Nation's Saving Grace and its follow-up, Bend Sinister, The Unutterable marks something of a return to form for the arch-cultist of British indie-dom.

All of The Fall's characteristic elements i.e. churning, repetitive dissonance and ultra-rhythmic chaos, are present and correct here. The opening track 'Cyber Inseckt' (which seems to have nicked the drum intro from The Sweet's 'Ballroom Blitz') and 'Two Librans' are injected with the kind of syncopation guaranteed to make you stand up and listen. With its rockabilly twist and hypnotic riffing, 'WB' is also strangely appealing. But things are taken to a sonic extreme on the title track, which is basically sixty seconds of maniacal ranting over what sounds like an industrial cutting lath.

There are forays into more musically conventional territory: 'Pumpkin Soup And Mashed Potatoes' sounds like a cross between one of Tom Waits' meandering rambles and The Clash's 'Jimmy Jazz' and is all the better for it.

Smith's vocals, which never amounted to much more than demented screeching rants, are positively scary throughout. And if he sounds like he's reading a washing-machine manual backwards that's because he probably is!

Like I say, strangely compelling.