Live at the Witch Trials

"Witch Trials came out in the spring of 1979, Dragnet in the autumn of 1979. Accordingly, these albums (newly reissued) are very much spring and autumn records, inasmuch as such acutely urban records can have ties to nature ... Witch Trials was both a step ahead and a step back with true punk bangers like "Futures and Pasts," two-and-a-half minutes of eye-gouging and haranguing that unravels in hyperventilating gasps. That deconstruction quickly morphs from cheeky to sinister. "Rebellious Jukebox"-one of the first self-aware Fall anthems-churns and stutters, thrown into each successive moment by a serpentine bassline that coils like inside-out dub. Smith is all sneers and snarls, delirious as he struggles against and succumbs to rock'n'roll entropy ... Soon after, he takes a leap into the cosmic void: "We are frigid stars." By the time the eight-minute closer "Music Scene" crawls its way into oblivion-en route, beating Public Image Ltd's similarly distended "Theme" and "Fodderstompf" to the punch by months-the Fall had already established themselves as something far more wobbly and toxic than the emerging post-punk mass".

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