Album Review: Part 2 by Brix & the Extricated

In 1996 Brix Smith Start quit The Fall for a second time and the smart money was on her leaving music behind for good. That gruelling second stint in her ex-husband’s band wasn’t much fun: Mark E. Smith, always erratic, had started to come apart at the seams as decades of amphetamine and booze took its toll, while his band fell from indie mainstays balancing on the lip of the mainstream to a cultish niche.

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Her PR blurb swears otherwise, but when Brix Smith-Start spits “I’m gonna make you pay for the girl you hurt” on Part 2’s visceral opening cut Pneumatic Violet, listeners might well assume she’s taking a belated swipe at her ex-husband, Mark E Smith. What is certain is that Brix was so “broken” (her term) by her experiences in The Fall, she remarried, became a TV fashion icon and let her guitar lie dormant for 15 years. Perhaps because fellow ex-The Fall personnel including bass lynchpin Steve Hanley are also involved, the less discerning have thus written off her new outfit, The Extricated, as a “tribute” band of sorts, yet as this hearteningly consistent set reveals, credibility won’t remain an issue for long..

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