Customer Reviews

Dragnet

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

While I've heard of the other remastered jobs on this ( " right I'll just use me old vinyl. Oh f**k it's scratched" ) this truly must be the definitive collection for this album. It may seem cheaply recorded for some but this is The Fall at possibly their rawest and possibly their most bile-ridden best. It truly has to be The Fall at heart. No other way to describe it, really. Highlights to watch out for are Spectre Vs Rector and Rowche Ramble with all it's outtakes. Possibly the most fun you'll ever have listening to a CD. Absolutely essential

This is The Fall's second album - the lineup which recorded their debut "Live at the Witch Trials" fell apart, and bandleader Mark Smith recruited mostly-new working-class lads into his band, which was now more guitar-based and Velvet Underground-influenced. They recorded this album which was generally thought to be so far-out and abrasive that it was "practically unlistenable".

This 2004 edition is undoubtably definitive. It sounds much better than the previous CD issue that I have (not that that one was especially bad). I think that the sound, the full psyched-out fractured glory the band was after, comes through much stronger than it has before. All instruments are distinctly audible and the "muddy, distant" sound the album was formerly noted for is no hindrence to being moved by this music. For the first time, I find myself transfixed by the album.

It's a strong, wild, imaginative album. The band's time is not rock-solid but it's not bad either. Rock and rockabilly rythms collide with guitar drone and primal rhythms to create a mood of unease - kinetically spikey unease. Influenced somewhat by Captain Beefheart and Public Image Limited along with the Velvets but going further in many directions than those bands did, this record is a real acheivement. As is its sonic restoration.

Coming in a close second place to the joy of hearing for the first time a tune, or, even better, a disc of tunes, that, until the moment of hearing it, it was not possible to imagine your life without, is the joy of rediscovering an old gem which - sentiment being fickle - you'd once imagined that you could not live without but had somehow, by passage of years, managed to do exactly that.

There was a time when this record, in the scratchy vinyl form which I listen to now, was indispensable to my life. Hardly a day went by when I did not play it. Admittedly, I did have fewer records in those days but it was affection rather than deprivation that informed my choice. At the undeniable risk of being accused of boasting and possessing possibly prophetic (i.e., supernatural) powers, I can only admit, humbly but with undeniable humbug, that I was right to realise then that this record can possibly change your life, your luck and chances with the ladies and gents. People, I present to you, a monument.

For diehard Fall fans, there are no tunes to recommend. Each one here is indispensable. But during the months that I inflicted this record on flatmates, I noticed that some tunes went down better than others. Those were Psykick Dancehall, A Figure Walks, Dice Man, Printhead, Before the Moon Falls, Flat of Angles, Your heart Out, Choc-Stock, Muzorewi's Daughter, Spectre vs. Rector and Put Away.

How could I have forgotten this record? Get your orders in. Quickly.
Ba da ba da!

Whichever year you first discovered the Fall, you MUST have this 1979 classic LP! This ranks as one of their best and has the first appearaince of Marc Riley on guitar, he is now a DJ on BBC radio and also formed his own band, Marc Riley and The Creepers, back in 1983, who are also well worth a listen. DRAGNET opens with PSYKICK DANCEHALL, with a spoof disco beat at the beginning and during the verses and a thoroughly shambolic but effective two-chord chorus. Mark E Smith, vocalist, rants, shouts and sings off key in his inimitable and unique style. DICE MAN, about the book, methinks, is a pastiche of Bo Diddley with its beat, and also clock the punkiness of PRINTHEAD, a surreal look at the music press from what I can decipher of the lyrics! Smith always throws around cryptic and indecipherable stories in the songs when he feels like it.

What I also liked about this LP was the rough and ready production obviously done on a low budget. The CD version is better quality, obviously, but the roughness came across better on my old vinyl copy. Other sings of note - BEFORE THE MOON FALLS, a very repetitive, chugging 'epic'(says word with sarcasm) with a one-chord riff in places which works, if you don't know this song give up the guitar now. SPECTRE VS RECTOR, their version of The Exorcist; FLAT OF ANGLES, a harsh but sometimes poppy number with hints of early Pink Floyd which tells of the tribulations of living in a tower block; PUT AWAY, which shambles along sounding like a bad band rehearsal and is a story of prison. On the CD, you also get ROWCHE RUMBLE, SECOND DARK AGE and another take on PSYKICK DANCEHALL which is actually sharper and ballsier than the album version. These tracks are off a 1979 single release which did well that year.
Overall, great to see that this post-punk classic is available on CD again for Fall fans old and young to enjoy. If you're into bands like The Hives and The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand, give The Fall a listen so you can see where they got it all from!

I bought this when it came out in 1979 and it remains possibly my favorite Fall album, maybe Hex Enduction Hour is better, but I have a sentimental attachment to this one. This is the Fall at their best I think, the album is worth buying just for Specter vs Rector which is a truly astonishing track. The Fall were one of the most important bands of the 70's/80's and of my life.

The Fall upset a few listeners when they released Dragnet; some of those who liked Live at the Witch Trials didn't cotton to the 'muddy' recording quality and 'crude' playing they found on this, their next album. The whole thing seemed to point to that which the late Claude Bessy called "the overall uncomfortableness of everything".

"This is the kind of music I would buy," replied Mark E. Smith to complainants. It's the kind of music you should buy, too. Psykick Dancehall, A Figure Walks, Printhead, Muzorewi's Daughter, Choc-Stock, Put Away are all wonderful songs.

So, listen up kiddies: there's nothing else like this album of music in the whole wide world and you ought to have it and cherish it and listen to it lots. As Mark himself says: "Let's get this thing together... and make it bad."

I waited thirteen years to get this record. No trace of disappointment. The perfect successor to 'Live at the Witch Trials', and a fine predecessor to 'Grotesque'. Mark E. Smith's lyrics are at their paranoid best recounting strange tales of depravity, such as 'Flat of Angles'. Eminently suitable for odd moods, or most other times.

This is one of the best Fall albums ever. It is haunting with its droning bass lines and scattered guitar work. Mark E. Smith has his strange lyrics that you have to listen to five times to understand. This is like the Sex Pistols had they released a second or third studio album. Muzorewi's Daughter is the best song on the album, with it's middle-eastern/punk theme, and Psycick Dancehall pokes fun at disco with a fake disco guitar work.

I'm a big fan of classic post-punk and early new wave and The Fall is one of those bands that seems to stand on the outside of what others are doing, taking the punk aesthetic and carving away all the things they probably hate about music. That's why "The Fall" is a perfect name for this band. It's cathartic. This album is only their second, when they were carving something more substantial out of the repetitious noise of punk. This is what I like to call a "finding-yourself-and-getting-used-to-everything" album. It is a transition. You can sense that they are a band with only one album and they're all thinking "what now? Lets try some stuff." Interesting for Fall fans. Casual listeners should seek a compilation. The Fall is just this melting pot of venom that you can plug into when you're having a tense day and you can let Mark E. Smith do all the yelling, complaining and shouting for you. I don't know what what he's talking about most times, but I understand why he's so tumultuous! If you are just starting to get into The Fall, go with a later album. My first album was "The Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall," and it was remarkable. Their music is somewhat addictive.

An excellent album, undoubtedly the best of the 1970's Fall output. Here, they finally harness the raw power of "Grotesque" with the intense imagery that would soon become a Mark E. Smith trademark. "A Figure Walks" and "Muzorewi's Daughter" are prime examples of this more restrained, yet still powerful music. You can almost feel the menace and paranoia in Smith's words and music in the former song; I used to like to play it at night, while driving on a dark road, just to freak myself out! Someone stole my Dragnet CD out of my car seven years ago, and I desparately searched the world for a replacement since then, up until last year. It was worth the wait . . .