It’s been 11 years since Mark E Smith sacked a member of the Fall but, at 60, he shows no other signs of mellowing. New Facts Emerge, his band’s 32nd album, is discordant and challenging, the singer’s drunk-in-a-park-style vocals the LP’s only consistent element. The best tracks (Fol De Rol, Gibbus Gibson, Groundsboy) flirt with disaster yet retain their discipline but, as is so often the case with the Fall, the music is less interesting than the song titles. Still, Couples Vs Jobless Mid 30s is compelling and head-spinningly strange - a stop-start marriage of demonic rock and kraut-punk in which Smith cackles and appears to speak in tongues.
