Irascible frontman Mark E. Smith has occasionally dabbled with pop songs that might have more liberally feathered his nest but has then veered sharply in another direction, deliberate in his efforts to make music that sounds like it might come apart at any moment.
And the music is Smith's, regardless of contributions from the many players who have passed through The Fall.
When his words tumble out across the framework constructed by his support team, they become the reason for bothering with any of it in the first place. In his band, it has always been a case of like it or lump it for those who might wish to push for more attention.
Fourth full-length album Hex Enduction Hour (1982) captures The Fall's spirit of organised chaos at its most vital.
The two-drummer line-up charges through the album's looser moments like a drunk descending Baldwin St: all arms and legs and miraculous recoveries from the brink of bloody carnage. At other times, most notably during the simmering build up in Hip Priest and the two-note holding pattern in Iceland, the tension is expertly controlled.
Huge, clashing chords cut against each other through The Classical, Fortress/Deer Park and Mere Pseud Mag Ed, while a killer riff pins Just Step S'ways to the floor, taking the familiar and twisting it out of shape, garage-band style.
Smith's Mancunian drawl laces itself through the tangle of this sonic junkyard, delivering line after line of brilliantly conceived invective. The one-time dockworker turned post-punk poet shreds targets here and nails colours to the wall there, his sharp observational eye admirably matched by a sharp tongue.
Much of it is opaque, disjointed or whimsical but therein lie the challenges that Smith, the king of uneasy listening, so fondly relishes.
