The Fall-Hex Enduction Hour

I should have changed my New Year’s resolution to state that I would purchase six Fall albums, because I’m already two ahead of the Dylan resolution. Lord knows, The Fall approach Dylan in their proficiency, so I’d have plenty of product to chose from.
“Hex Enduction Hour,” self-described as “a well-produced noise thing,” is just that and generally viewed as a classic in The Fall cannon.

What a cannon it is, as Mark E. Smith opens the release with “The Classical” by asking “Where are the obligatory niggers?/Hey there, fuck face!” Smith is already coming out swinging and the rest of the band rollick along with a two drummer line up and some innovative guitar work from Marc Riley and Craig Scanlon. “The Classical” is one of the greatest and most vicious Fall songs ever.
How fucking cool is Mark E. Smith? Pretty fuckin’. Consider the track “Who Makes The Nazis?” where Smith accurately names “bad bias tele-v!” as the culprit. Who makes the Nazis? “Balding smug faggots/intellectual half-wits.” Brilliant. And this was over a decade before the advent of Fox-TV.
How influential is Mark E. Smith? Pretty fuckin’. Consider the track “Iceland” where a simple piano phrase lies underneath drums, percussion, and high-fret bass phrasing. Anyone who’s ever owned a Sugarcubes (or solo Bjork) album can pretty much gather how “Hex,” particularly this track from it, may have been their touch-stone. “And the spawn of the volcano/is thick and impatient/like the people around it.” Now you know why Sigur Ros made up their own language; M.E.S. has complete mastery of English prose.
I’ve got to hand it to Sanctuary records for expanding some of the Fall’s catalog like “Hex.” The albums are presented in their original form with an extra disc for bonus material. The packaging is also top-notch with informative liner notes. For example, when the album was released, Flexipop magazine had Mark E. Smith review a fucking Krokus album. If that wasn’t awesome enough, the magazine also had the lead singer of the Swiss heavy metal band Krokus, Mark Storace, review “Hex Enduction Hour.” Mark, who found a bit of notoriety with his ample chest hair and a cover of “Ballroom Blitz” felt that The Fall album was “One long downer”and that "this type of music doesn't appeal to me." One would think that someone like Mark E. Smith would be upset about a comment like this, but when he was asked about the current flavor of British pop music at the time like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, he admitted that he would rather listen to Krokus.
“And This Day” ends “H.E.H.” with 10 minutes of chaotic noise with what could be the most appropriate album closer since The Stooges “L.A. Blues.” Starting off with a certain amount of structure, the song gallops into a dissonant groove while Smith yells “everywhere just no fucking respite for us here!” According to the liner notes, this ten minute track was edited down from the original recording which clocked in at close to 25 minutes. Mark wasn’t very happy about that decision, either. But when is Mark happy?