Manchester augur Mark E Smiths been gone since 2018, but The Fall's name lives on as shorthand for scathing, proletarian-minded guitars-and-voice abrasion. Enlarged from a blog, these 656 pages take on the now concluded canon, from 1979's Live At The Witch Trials to 2017's New Facts Emerge. It's an admirable approach, as all the albums get equal appraisal and context, and the gold in the radio sessions, tawdry comps and often bum-quality live releases. The Fall weren't simply the best at what they did, they were the only ones to do what they did.
