Disco de The Fall: “Hip Priests and Kamerads”

Collecting both sides of non-LP singles, and selected album tracks from "Hex Enduction Hour" and "Room To Live," this album essentially is a compliment to "Palace Of Swords Reversed," which gathered tracks from The Fall's time at Rough Trade Records. "Hip Priests and Kamerads" isn't as strong an album as that other compilation, but it does boast some pretty good tracks, such as both sides of the "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul"/"Fantastic Life" single, "The Classical" and "Hip Priest." It also is the only place one can find the studio versions of the "Look, Know"/"I'm Into C.B.!" single, as well as 5 live tracks of songs from "Hex Enduction Hour," 4 of them not on the original release. These range from the great ("Just Step Sideways") to the average ("Mere Pseud Mag. Editor") to the awful ("And This Day," which is a bad song to begin with). I would not make this the first album to buy of the Fall, but once you have established your fanship, it will be necessary.

This is a hit and miss album but is a gem nonetheless. One song called The Classical is one of my favorite Fall songs ever. It's totally gothic sounding with a hypnotic bass line. Jaw Bone is a classic post-punk song. Some tunes totally suck and are so repetitive you will have to fast foward. And there is a 15 minute song called And This Day that no one can play for more than four minutes. But with The Fall you have to take the good with the bad.

If you have never heard "the classical" then you are in for a major treat.However it is not the only gem on this great great album. Admittedly, I am a HUGE fan of the fall, and can claim to have been one for nearly 20 years - almost their entire history - so I guess I am a bit biased, but this record ranks among my favorites by the band. I always preferred their earlier lo-fi sound, where they would pummel a riff into the ground. This album, along with Grotesque, and Nations Saving Grace, and Frenz Experiment and....STOP ME - I COULD GO ON FOREVER!

It's a good one. Check it out!

I'm not sure what the reviewers above missed in this album. Going by the LP that I bought back in '86 and assuming the same tracks are represented here which depicts life in the early 80's in England as shrill, banal and meaningless as life in the States is now. Thoroughly enjoyable but I can't vouch for the extra tracks - I haven't hear them.

If youre a Pavement fan, you've probably heard plenty about the Fall and their influence. I have to admit that the singer Mark E. Smith sounds basically like SM with a British accent, but otherwise not much of the music resembles much of what Pavement has done, with the exception of a few weirder Westing-like tracks. However, the first track ROCKS, and there are a few other real good songs that sound better than the rest of what post-punk Britain was producing at the time. The Fall have plenty of other better records, but this one's good to have, sort of like how nobody REALLY likes Bad Moon Rising but everybody has it.