Customer Reviews

Live at the Witch Trials

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love this album. For years I had it on a tape together with Dragnet. Finally got it on CD. This album sounds stripped down, nothing fancy just great music and Mark E Smiths distinctive voice. The entire album was recorded in one day and mixed the following day. The Fall are an underrated band to come out of the punk / post-punk era of England. This album sounds just as good today as it did when I first heard it some 17 years ago. Although it is the Fall's first album it sounds remarkably mature and together. Highly recommended to those who have an open mind to music.

the first installment from the institution. v. good. hair,short, the lot. 1979. it is the english version, which includes 'mother-sister', 'industrial estate' and excludes 'various times'. b. warned: a vinyl transcription noisier tahn the copy i own. but it's not easy to find this one and the songs are there. now if we could only get someone to pump out 'dragnet'...

...pretty much sums it up. This would be a five star title if it weren't for the absolutely terrible quality of the CD recording, on occasion nearly completely losing the left channel of sound. If you find this on vinyl certainly pick it up. This CD is a poor version of one of the true masterpieces of "punk rock", if The Fall can be called that. Suggest trying some of the other later Fall releases, such as Infotainment Scan or Light User Syndrome first if you have yet to be introduced to the Wonderful and Frightening World of The Fall. You've been warned:

The album is a magnificent creation. The music consists of disparate elements (awesome spikey guitar, busy drumming, simplistic keyboards, bass, and slurring barking voice), held together by passion and energy. This band posessed more ambition and ability than their peer group (Sex Pistols, Clash, Jam, PIL, Sioxsie & Banshees, Gang of 4, and other great bands). It's a mystery to me why they weren't more appreciated.

This edition puts the album forward in its best light, in nice fidelity, and collects practically all other available tracks from this band in this era. The last 12 tracks, from a Liverpool gig in 1978, have terrible fidelity but this is not important because the preceding collection of tracks, including 2 45's from the time and 2 tracks recorded for "Live at the Electric Circus" are frankly astonishing.

Someone once said that this was the only punk album ever made. I am inclined to agree, on many levels. This is raw, unfiltered, from-the-spittle Mark E. Smith at his origin. The music is uncharacterizable. It's more anti-music than anything. Wildly harsh, atonal and plain old out-of-tune in many spots. That's The Point, really. Industrial Estate was the first Fall song I ever heard, and I thought it was sheer brilliance on every level the first time and every time I hear it. A perfect punk work song if one ever existed. Two Steps Back is one of my favorites. Great lyrics, great delivery. Music Scene is a long song with spit-flecked lyrics, and the first example of MES using alternative pronunciations of words (scene=skin-a). Repetition gives us a view into why the Fall are repetitious. It's A New Thing is a great we-are-a-rock-band song unlike any other. The rest of the "expanded" album varies from the vital to hear (Put Away is kickass) to the "why the **** are they charging me for this crap" (pretty much every live track on the album, though I like Music Scene). The Peel session material is good, but nothing spectacular apart from Put Away.

I give it maximum stars for the base album, mostly. They could throw fracking Billy Joel on the album and I'd still give it 5 stars. I wish there were 6.

The Fall - Live at the Witch Trials [Deluxe Bonus Disc] [import] (Castle UK)-2004.

This is the 2 CD edition and like the original version it's NOT live.

Check it out at <a href="[...]"where I bought mine new on November 26, 2009 for $[...] USD including S/H. Sorry about the price increase since I got mine. :-(

What you get is 41 songs, 2:23:55 total time of music.

What I got was 11 songs, 43:05 total time of above 3 star (4-5) songs.

Here is an excerpt Review by Ned Raggett from All Music Guide (AMG)

The story of the various versions of Live at the Witch Trials' re-releases over the years is its own part of the Fall lore, most notably including a terrible CD release in 1997 taken from a scratched vinyl copy. A later 2002 version improved on this but this two-disc, 25th anniversary 2004 version on Castle/Sanctuary, part of a thorough reissue series covering the band's earliest days, clearly becomes the definitive digital version of the Fall's first album, not least because it is finally mastered directly from the original tapes...

The first thing I noticed about this 2 CD set is that the bass guitar is more noticeable then on their latter albums/compilations. It might also have to do with this set being the BEST sounding version.

BE FOREWARNED: There are a few songs (different versions) that sound as bad as the blackmarket versions, but luckily there will always be a version that sounds GREAT!

FYI: There are nine Lo-Fi songs on this 2 CD set. Just read the above to calm you down.

BOTTOM LINE: If you liked some songs by this band, you may want to check it out. I'm glad I got it but wont base my reputation on it.

There was one song that left an impression on me:

Two Steps Back - The Fall - 1978 - "Good first impression. Nice guitar riffs and drum work. BEST track on disc 1 of 2? On chugging tracks like 'Two Steps Back,' it's not hard to tell Smith's Krautrock fandom is coming into play."

this is the rerelease of the first true fall album.

Rumor had it (since done in) that they WROTE and RECORDED this thing in a weekend session. While NOT entirely true - they did blast through the recording session. The Drums are HOT. And the style is unmistakable.

MES is inimitable - his poetry and delivery is what makes the Fall so interesting. But the throbbing grooves the band lays down are hypnotic - and while on the fringes of the punk movement (smith hates to be lumped in with anything) this band will always be a punk band to me.

eh? am i really the first person to review this album? surprising, especially considering how influential this record has been. the music of The Fall is both engaging and off-putting. the casual fan of punk or post rock will probably be confused. and that my friends, may be the point. or maybe not. you decide. take a listen. personally, Live At The Witch Trials is probably my favorite Fall record. this version is a deluxe edition which contains a ton of bonus tracks; of which the highlight is probably the inclusion of the Bingo Master's Break-Out! songs.

This is an amazing album - one of my favorites by the Fall. So much energy! I recommend this album to the whole universe. HOWEVER, this CD version is pathetically poor. I can't believe anybody lets this sit on the shelf! Now that it is near impossible to get ahold of this and other early Fall CDs, I imagine we can expect a remastered edition sometime soon - hopefully. Be warned, the recording quality literally hurts your ears.

Though The Fall would get better over the years, this stands as an excellent debut LP. The guitar sound is a tee-bit different on here because it features original guitarist Martin Bramah instead of Craig Scanlon (who would join in time for the next album "Dragnet"). Though I seriously can't stand "No Xmas for John Quays," the number of highlights on here are numerous: the speedy "Futures and Pasts," the longish "Music Scene," "Two Steps Back," and the best song here "Rebellious Jukebox." Certainly, the fact that this was mastered from a vinyl copy with a couple of skips and scratches in it doesn't help, but the music overcomes that.