Album Review: The Remainderer [EP] by The Fall

If it wasn’t for the accompanying blurb on The Remainderer EP, its purpose to simply occupy time between projects would elude you. Described as such for May’s Re-Mit and next year’s scheduled 31st studio album, the The Remainderer EP sounds less like a momentary ‘bridging point’ and more like a fully-fledged, coherent Fall effort. What else would you expect from a band, or front-man for that matter, who have such a heightened attitude to productivity? It’s no secret that Mark E Smith doesn’t like to spend his time idly, but the habit of releasing two records – both similarly appealing- and in such quick succession, has not been so much of a recurring theme in recent years.

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As if putting out an album almost every year for three and a half decades wasn’t enough, Mark E Smith’s productivity is now so high that The Fall have released this EP as a ‘bridging point’ between May’s ‘Re-Mit’ and next year’s scheduled 31st studio album. With a work ethic like that, it’s no surprise Smith can’t contain his contempt for any band who’ve taken a few years off and recently reformed. He has long-time Fall engineer Simon ‘Ding’ Archer read a bile-fuelled poem aimed at their lack of stamina towards the end of ‘Remembrance R’ (indie trivia: Ding also plays bass on the new Pixies EP).

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Even by the Fall’s notoriously prolific standards, 2013 has been a busy year for whatever poor sod has to update the band’s discography on Wikipedia. The past few months have seen the release of a spirited if sloppy full-length, Re-Mit; at least two live albums (the latest of which is simply called Live, presumably because Mark E. Smith has run out of titles); and now, that relatively rare beast in the Fall canon, an EP of all new material.

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Since the last album, a fine new Fall track has already emerged: ‘Bag Boy’, by the Pixies. It couldn’t have been a more explicit homage to Mark E Smith’s group. Amid the familiar grinding rhythms, its vocal put the Mark in trademark: all hectoring instructions couched in oddly formal language. "Polish your speech!" is the new "Pay your rates!" In a further doff of the cap, the Pixies have since added to their live set a cover of the Fall song from which ‘Bag Boy’ borrows most heavily: ‘Big New Prinz’.

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