The Fall have shared the heady single ‘30 Degrees’, taken from their forthcoming “final” album ‘Post Script’ – listen below.
The cult Manchester band’s leader Mark E. Smith died in 2018 after a battle with lung and kidney cancer, and it recently emerged that he had been working on a new album at the time.
That album has now been completed and is getting an official release under the title ‘Post Script’, with former Fall member and manager Ed Blaney saying earlier this month that it would be out “imminently” and would be comprised of “nine absolute bangers”.
Now, the first song from the album has surfaced, a four-minute psych-rock jam with fuzzy synths and a deep bass groove, laced with Smith’s unmistakably surreal and acerbic lyrics. Listen to ‘30 Degrees’ here:
Blaney posted earlier this month: “Have spent most the afternoon today listening to the final mixes of the official final studio album by The Fall, without any doubt I can say it’s an absolute brilliant album. A Fall fans dream and some … and for all the eager Fall fans awaiting the news, its release date and order details are imminent. The album is called ‘Post Script’ with nine absolute bangers.”
The Fall formed after Smith saw the Sex Pistols play at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, and took their name from the Albert Camus novel. Their debut EP, ‘Bingo-Master’s Break Out!’ dropped in 1978, followed the next year by their debut album ‘Live At The Witch Trials’.
Their most commercially successful period was during the ’80s – when Smith was married to The Fall’s American guitarist Brix Smith – and albums included 1984’s ‘The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall’, 1985’s ‘This Nation’s Saving Grace’, 1986’s ‘Bend Sinister’ and 1988’s ‘The Frenz Experiment’.
“Quickly, Smith began to craft a complex literary voice for himself which became as unmistakable as his own abrasive vocals,” read an obituary from NME after Smith’s death.
“Musically, they would create hypnotic recurring patterns, best summed up by one of Smith’s lyrics: ‘The three Rs are repetition, repetition, repetition.’ An early and consistent fan and champion of the band was Radio 1’s John Peel, who claimed The Fall were his favourite band because: ‘They’re always different, but always the same’.”
In the time since Smith’s death, Brix Smith has also released a debut solo album ‘Valley Of The Dolls’ in 2023, and told NME that she considers it “the best thing I’ve done since The Fall”.
“I can die happy now,” she added. “For so long I’ve been a part of a band or hiding within a band. And I just thought it’s time to fucking stand up and own it and own what I do. It’s time to fucking put my head above the parapet and stand up there and say I am Brix Smith.”
