Hex Enduction Hour

Infobox Album |
Name = Hex Enduction Hour
Type = Album
Artist = The Fall


Released = 8 March 1982
Recorded = September and December 1981
Genre = Post punk
Length = 60:08
Label = Kamera
Producer = Richard Mazda
Reviews =
*Allmusic Rating|4|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:z0evad3kv8w3 link]
*Mojo Rating|4|5 [http://www.buy.com/prod/Hex_Induction_Hour_0605/q/loc/109/63981983.html#prorev link]
*Pitchfork Media (9.6/10) [http://pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/17646/The_Fall_Hex_Enduction_Hour 6 July 2005 ]

*UNCUT Rating|5|5 [http://www.buy.com/prod/Hex_Induction_Hour_0605/q/loc/109/63981983.html#prorev link] |
Last album = "Live in London 1980"
(1982)
This album = "Hex Enduction Hour"
(1982)
Next album = "A Part of America Therein, 1981"
(1982)

"Hex Enduction Hour" is a 1982 album by The Fall. It showcased a new two-drummer lineup, and the most accessible music they had yet produced. The music remained raw and noisy, but with a more pronounced melodic sense. The album was partly recorded in Iceland during the group's 1981 visit, with the remainder being completed in a disused cinema in Hitchin, England. A single, "Look, Know" / "I'm Into C.B.", was recorded contemporaneously but not included on the album, standard practice for the group until 1986.

Mark E. Smith told journalist Sandy Robertson that he had envisaged "Hex" as being the group's final album and that he would not have continued in music had this been the case [http://www.visi.com/fall/gigography/image/82may08_sounds.jpg] . However, the record received very positive reviews and was the first Fall album to make the official chart, spending 3 weeks in and peaking at #71.

With a degree of irony, the album's opener "The Classical" was later covered (though with altered lyrics) by Pavement, who had frequently been accused of copying The Fall in their early career.

"Hex Enduction Hour" was remastered and reissued in January 2005 with a disc of bonus material. In April 2007, a single disc edition containing just the original album was issued in a digipak sleeve at midprice.

One of the record's most recognised tunes is side one's "Hip Priest", with its lyrical riff of "He is not appreciated." Smith later reworked the song for the band's 1988 work "I Am Kurious Oranj", while the original track was used as the soundtrack to the climax of the 1991 film "The Silence of the Lambs".

Colin Wilson, a writer on the occult and existensialist philosophy is mentioned in the refrain of "Deer Park".

Track listing

ide one

#"The Classical" (Mark E. Smith, The Fall) – 5:16
#"Jawbone and the Air-Rifle" (Smith, The Fall) – 3:43
#"Hip Priest" (Smith, The Fall) – 7:45 (audio|The Fall Hip Priest.ogg|sample)
#"Fortress" / "Deer Park" (Smith, Craig Scanlon, Marc Riley, Karl Burns) – 6:41
#"Mere Pseud Mag. Ed." (Smith) – 2:50
#"Winter (Hostel-Maxi)" (Smith, Scanlon) – 4:26

ide two

#"Winter, No. 2" (Smith, Scanlon) – 4:33
#"Just Step S'ways" (Smith) – 3:22
#"Who Makes the Nazis?" (Smith) – 4:27
#"Iceland" (Smith, Scanlon, Riley, Steve Hanley) – 6:42
#"And This Day" (Smith, The Fall) – 10:18

2005 bonus disc

#"Deer Park" (Scanlon, Riley, Burns, Smith) – 4:26
#*from the band's fifth John Peel session broadcast 15 September 1981
#"Who Makes the Nazis?" (Smith) – 2:57
#*from the band's fifth John Peel session
#"I'm into C.B." (Kay Carroll, Scanlon, Smith) – 6:30
#*originally released as B-side on the single "Look, Know" in 1982
#"Session Musician" (Smith, Riley, Scanlon, Hanley) – 9:11
#*live at the Boerkeller, Leeds, 5 November 1981
#"Jazzed Up Punk Shit" (Scanlon, Riley, Hanley, Smith) – 4:10
#*live at the 666 Club, Manchester, 15 May 1982
#"I'm into C.B. (Stars on 45 Version)" (Carroll, Scanlon, Smith) – 3:14
#*live at Fagins, Manchester, 30 September 1981
#"And This Day" (Smith, The Fall) – 6:13
#*from the soundcheck at Main Street, Auckland, New Zealand, 20 August 1982
#"Deer Park" (Scanlon, Riley, Burns, Smith) – 9:34
#*Live at Main Street, Auckland, 20 August 1982
#"And This Day (Revisited)" (Scanlon, Riley, Burns, Hanley, Paul Hanley, Smith) – 5:24
#*live at Astoria 2, London, 26 February 1997

Personnel

*Mark E. Smith – vocals, tapes, guitar
*Craig Scanlon – guitar, vocal, piano
*Marc Riley – electronic organ, guitar, electric piano; banjo (uncredited)
*Steve Hanley – bass guitar, vocal
*Paul Hanley – drums, guitar
*Karl Burns – drums, vocal, tapes
*Kay Carroll – vocals, percussion

Miscellanea

*Motown Records were interested in signing the band in 1984 and asked to hear their back catalogue. "Hex Enduction Hour" was the only album Smith had to hand. The letter the group received back stated "I see no commercial potential in this band whatsoever". Smith speculated that this might have had something to do with the lines "Where are the obligatory niggers? / Hey there, fuckface" from "The Classical". "(Brian Edge - Paintwork - Omnibus Press 1989, p72)"

External links

* [http://www.freehosting.hostrave.com/p/fall/heh.html Lyrics]
* [http://www.visi.com/fall/news/iceland.html Melody Maker article about The Fall's 1981 visit to Iceland]