Enter Brix, the best foil Mark E. Smith ever had. There’s a brief period where The Fall are in a high comic mode, which you can hear on “Eat Y’self Fitter” and also on “The Lie Dream of a Casino Soul” (not here). “What’s a computer?”—you know MES is applying early for codger status. “Old man yells at clouds” was The Fall long before The Simpsons was even a sketch. The Fall’s looping goofball rigatoni rhythm was in place and the new circus tootle was good. MES goes down easier as demented canrvial barker than a doomsday preacher or 3 AM pub prophet. “I used to have this thing about Link Wray, I used to play him every Saturday.”

– Sasha Frere-Jones