The Frenz Experiment (studio album) by The Fall

From Brad1770 07/23/2021 06:28

Truth be told I’ve always loved The Fall and in particular main man Mark E Smith who’s reputation as a surly nonconformist is no contrived act

1988’s ‘The Frenz Experiment’ is a seemingly forgotten Fall album but it did complete the best one/two punch of their career coming on the back of the previous and wonderful ‘Bend Sinister’. Like many great albums this ones a slow burn but once you get it the tracks seep into you brain like a worm especially “Carry Bag Man”; “Bremen Nacht” (about a terrible Fall gig in the German town of Bremen) and album highlight closer “Oswald Defence Lawyer” with wacky lyrics such as:

“How do you think that jury made up of putrid mass
Embraced theory of triangle bullet lines
Turning in circles twice
Then incredible, marvellous, exiting back of mind?”

Note 1: I have the original vinyl copy of this album sitting next to me as I write this and can confirm the BEA track listing is 100% correct, I don’t know what the 2012 comment is referring to

Note 2: The expanded edition of this album is really quite remarkable with enough good material to make an excellent album in its own right with “Mark’ll Sink Us”; “There’s A Ghost In My House”, “Hit the North”; “Australians in Europe ”; “Guest Informant”; the excellent cover of “A Day in the Life” and course the hilarious “Twister”

The Frenz Experiment was the first of a long run where the quality control was slightly neglected, but there were still enough great tracks here to outweigh the average ones.

Like many albums that followed, it could have been so much better, why include only a snippet of the brilliant Guest Informant instead of the full track? And for my money Bremen Nacht could have had about three or four minutes cut from the end. But these are just niggles and this was the time the Fall were having top forty hits with Victoria and There's A Ghost In My House, both covers of course, but I get the feeling MES would have felt the need to sabotage this kind of popularity.

Wow - the track list here bears very little resemblance to the copy (original vinyl) that I have....

Still a good album by the Fall... probably not their best but enough highlights to keep fans happy!