The Fall

Damon Albarn talked about retiring  Gorillaz , but instead he made a new album, almost immediately after  Plastic Beach . The Fall is low-key and concise, the shortest Gorillaz album. It only has one guest vocalist (Bobby Womack on "Bobby In Phoenix"), and even Albarn's presence is muted. His lyrics are often simple, fragmented chants (e.g. "little pink plastic bags blowing on a highway") that barely seem to rise above the music. Many songs sound like vignettes: only one is over four minutes long, and seven are under three.What this means is, The Fall is as close as Gorillaz have ever come to making a pure electronic album. For the first time, we get a chance to focus on all those weird sound clips, effects, textures and layers that were always bubbling beneath the surface of Gorillaz  albums . They come to the forefront and inspire a new emphasis on atmosphere. The instrumental opening track "Phoner To Arizona" starts with a fuzzy digital bass sound, fairly close to Plastic Beach, and adds some synth beeps from the same album, but also brings in dark, uneasy strings and a rhythmic hook that sounds like it was made by distorting the pitch on Albarn's voice and then chopping it up.You can hear Plastic Beach in the rhythm section, the beats have the same tinny, cheap drum-machine sound. Maybe Plastic Beach was actually recorded on an iPad, too! But, surprisingly, the music on The Fall actually has more detail. Even the idyllic acoustic guitar line in the beginning of "Hillbilly Man" is more technically and rhythmically interesting than any ballad from Plastic Beach. The best tracks are the instrumentals. The biggest stand-out is the strutting, cinematic, horn-driven "The Snake In Dallas." But the breezy synth lead in "Detroit" is adorable and gentle, and the interplay between bright keyboard background and moody minor-key organ in "Shytown" (with some vocals, but it feels like another instrumental) creates a delicate mood, thoughtful but not gloomy.The pacing is excellent, and short as the songs are, they reveal a surprising amount of variety. "Hillbilly Man" switches gears completely from acoustic guitar to trip-hop beats, dirge-like synths and scraping noises, but the same downbeat tone persists through the entire song. "California And The Slipping Of The Sun" kicks into a pretty great techno groove, but only close to the song's end. The production (but not the composition) is fairly simplistic and one-dimensional, the instruments sound compressed and artificial, but they are often manipulated in interesting ways, for example the desolate synth-chirping in "Little Pink Plastic Bags." Somehow the garish production style matches the somber mood and the album's overall concept. Apparently, it was recorded while on tour, and it has an atmosphere of transience and impermanence, sitting in some anonymous hotel room, looking out the window onto the usual highway, city or airport views and just killing time until something happens. "Slipping Of The Sun" even has what sounds like clips from a news broadcast or PA announcement.It'd be a miracle if there wasn't any filler. "The Joplin Spider" is blaring synth noise (that can be good, but not with this flat production), and "The Speak It Mountains" takes too long to get going, with nearly a full minute of voices repeating "it is the dawn" before any music shows up. But even those two songs aren't a total loss. "Spider" brings in more melodic keyboards in the second half for a more trance-like sound. It fades out almost immediately on arrival, but what can you do? And "Mountains," once it gets over the voices, has a very relaxing two-note synth loop. It sounds like a nice intro to a song about the dawn, which unfortunately does not show up. "Aspen Forest" is a pleasant bit, not very memorable at first, but then a cascading harp-like phrase livens up the ending.A couple of songs are basically just typical Albarn ballads: "Amarillo" sounds like "Herculean" from  The Good, The Bad And The Queen ," whereas "Revolving Doors" is a shuffling mope like "Rhinestone Eyes." I don't suppose we can blame him for playing to his own strengths. Over the past ten years, he's become an amazing crooner.This may become a very under-rated album. There is no big single (in fact, no obvious single at all), the promotion is relatively modest, and yeah, the album was made in a month. One might be tempted to dismiss it as an insubstantial EP, collector bait like  G-Sides  or  D-Sides . In fact, The Fall might even be better than Plastic Beach.

I really enjoyed 'The Fall' in large part due to the fact that Damon Albarn/2D performs most of the vocals, too often he simply sings a few repetitive lines while other artists take the spotlight. In 'Doncamatic', he simply repeats 'Talk to me' about nine times. I like 'Doncamatic', and Daley has a great voice, but it barely has anything to do with Gorillaz beyond a couple of shots of 2D and one of Plastic Beach. In 'The Fall', Albarn has at least one guest artist, Bobby Womack for 'Bobby in Phoenix', but otherwise he's singing solo. I especially liked the songs 'Hillbilly Man' and 'Amarillo'. 'Hillbilly Man' shows a lot of vocal range on Damon's part, and the instrumentals are great, too. The whole album demonstrates a tremendous vocal range.It's amazing that this album was recorded, and probably written, in many cases, over a period of 32 days during Gorillaz North American tour. Most of the songs with the names of cities or states, such as 'Amarillo', were recorded in those places. 'The Snake in Dallas' was recorded in Dallas, 'Shy Town' was recorded in Chicago, etc.And it was all put together on an iPad!This is true talent.

I've been looking for this on vinyl for years and so glad this is finally available. I prefer to chill listening to vinyl and this is one of my favorites. "The Fall" was the album that actually got me into Gorillaz music. I know there are some Gorillaz OG folks that thought this was too different from their other music but for me it's exactly what I love about them as a band.Regarding the skip issue...I have no skips at all. I have a Denon DP-300F and Audio Technica AT-LP 120. These are low to mid-range phonos, so I surmise the skipping some folks are having is due to the cheaper players out there... or possibly they may need to tune their tracking force.

In In some ways Gorillaz is the most contradictory, anomalous phenomenon imaginable. They are almost purely a commercial creation. The way they came together, the way they are packaged and marketed--might as well be The Monkees rather than the Gorillaz.But they continue to experiment and create in really interesting ways, and they seem mostly willing to do it in public. There's some unwelcome noodling and noise on "The Fall," and that's hardly shocking given how the album was produced, but what is surprising is the warmth, beauty, and humanity they managed to pump into then squeeze back out of an iPad.Not every track is a gem. In fact, as the CD started playing my first thought was, Oh oh. Wasted money. But very soon and for much of the rest of "The Fall" I revised my opinion. And I'm left with this thought: Not every experiment on here is successful, but what IS successful is the ACT OF EXPERIMENTING. I give them huge credit for having the courage--not to say ballz--even to put some of this stuff out there. If this can inspire other people to turn their portable computing devices into sound studios with experiments of their own--so much the better. Gorillaz has demonstrated very ably what is possible from that approach.

"...and yes, it's a diary of a sort of sonic journey around America. [...] It's another record from Gorillaz, but I don't think you could classify it as THE NEXT Gorillaz album." I just quoted Damon Albarn from one of his interviews (French one, you can look it up) and this album is exactly what he says it is.Short, very interesting tracks that flow fluently from one into the other and have a very distinct American feel to them that is transferred via musical samples, instruments and lyrics. The album definitely doesn't go whole hog with guest appearances, orchestras, fancy equipment or heart-stopping back-up vocals. It's 2D's album: simple and melancholic. And many reviewers seem to have overlooked these facts.I had to listen to it several times before I actually got the feel to it and it grew on me. Tracks like Revolving Doors, The Joplin Spider, The Snake in Dallas and of course, the highlight of the album (imho) Amarillo - are very, very captivating. I bought the CD copy which was also available as a free MP3 download and I feel that I've done the right thing. I really hope Gorillaz continue making music!About the physical copy of the CD: it comes in a thin cardboard case, inside it you are given information which musical instruments were used, who performed the and wrote the songs, where and when each song was written.

For me The Fall works in a similar way to Tubular Bells or a good soundtrack album. It rolls along nicely in the background and occasionally grabs my attention in a great way. It seems the polar opposite of the hit laden debut Gorillaz album, and a long way from the kid-friendly band I think it was originally intended to be, but don't let that put you off. Albarn succeeds in combining the unique and often bizarre sounds of actual and virtual instruments to build an experimental success. It feels more raw and personal than Plastic Beach which is nicely captured in the cover artwork.I hope that one day Albarn & Hewlett will resolve their differences and bring us more projects of this great ilk.

Not the best of gorillaz but worth listening to.

This is what Plastic Beach should have sounded like, some unique beats, sweeping soundscapes and complex meleodies - very much an Albarn project though..

great CD