Let’s Go All The Way

The Fall “Coach and Horses” – This year’s Fall album Reformation Post TLC is an odd, misshapen thing, full of thick, bass-heavy compositions that mostly set into musical holding patterns in order to accommodate Mark E Smith’s vocals, but never accentuate his words, much less gel into memorable songs. There’s an intentional rawness to the album — most of the second half seems to have been recorded in concert — but that tossed-off aesthetic carries over into the majority of the songs, which come across as severely under-written and barely arranged, as though Smith just stumbled into some mediocre band’s rehearsal and called it a recording session. The record maintains the basic level of quality to be expected from an album by the Fall, but is very wide of the mark hit by late period classics such as “Midnight Aspen,” “Theme From Sparta FC,” “Susan Vs. Youth Club,” and “Dr. Buck’s Letter.” The brief melodic interlude “Coach and Horses” is the keeper this time around, and basically sounds unlike everything else on the record with its light, ethereal arpeggios and utter lack of regrettable guitar and keyboard tones. (Click here to pre-order it from CD Wow.)

Dragonette “Get Lucky” – Dragonette’s first album is a grab bag of pop songs in various styles, all of which are amiable and catchy, but lacking a recognizable identity to hold them all together. Individually, the tracks are more successful, most especially this perky nu-cabaret number, which comes off like a sunnier, less cranky version of Nellie McKay and fearlessly commits to its own corniness. The band seem at home in this self-consciously mild and sentimental mode, much more so when they attempt a somewhat unconvincing “bad girl” pose on other cuts, even if one of those happens to be the other best song on the album. (Click here for the official Dragonette site.)