Search - Fall :: Slates

Hotel maids smile in unison and you know in your brain

Geoffrey R. Balme | raleigh NC | 08/17/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I love the Fall, some of their later records have gone by the wayside for me (they are outrageously prolific - and like Captain Beefheart - largely a vocalist songwriter surrounded by a variety of musicians).

I got my hands on slates at about the same time I wasn't graduating High School. My friends and I studied it meticulously, like all Fall albums (there's sometimes more just on the liner notes than many other bands have in their entire records!) This orginally was a 10" vinyl Lp and looked GREAT. The six songs had 4 downright poppy and unforgettable hooks in them - and the lengthy ponderous "slates" was - while droning on and on like a Delta blues piece, full of interesting verbosity from Smith.



This release is a gem - as it's saddled with some great extras - to fill out the CD length and allow for longer playing. The original release was just the first six tracks - ending with the fabuous "leave the capital".

"Fit and Working Again" was damned near anthemic for me at 18 - and even now evokes a kind of material excitement and madness of growing up.

"Older Lover" is brilliant and promising as well.



They were never really to sound like this again - and like many great things - a kind of recorded snapshot of musical and social history.



I hear these days that Smith is mostly an onstage drunk surrounded by musicians half his age who wouldn't even know Slates... but, that's another story that includes a fist fight from the boney old man with his former band mates... Ah! Rockstars!"

It grows on you

http://www.davidrhoden.com | New Orleans, LA United States | 07/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first heard the 'Slates' EP when it came out and was totally bothered and befuddled by it. I remembered thinking the cover looked fantastic. I listened to a borrowed vinyl copy many times and never could decide if I liked it, or if I even got it. Years later I got another copy, with all these bonus tracks. I'm still not sure I get it but it sounds great to me. Cleans indie rock garbage out of your ears. Some of their poppiest stuff and also some of the most abrasive."