Room To Live

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ALBUM INFORMATION
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Total Tracks: 13   Total Length: 64:55

eMusic Review

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Andrew Perry

eMusic Contributor

04.22.11
Mark E. Smith’s bitter response to the Falklands War.
2003 | Label: Cog Sinister / Voiceprint

After Hex Enduction Hour, Mark E. Smith quickly returned to the microphone thanks to his disgust at the Falklands War, launched in spring '82 by Margaret Thatcher, to rescue the tiny mid-Atlantic islands from an Argentinian invasion — or, to curry votes for the impending election, depending on your level of cynicism. “Undiluted Slang Truth” screams the subtitle. Smith saw this album's remit as being a kind of truthful newsreel, amid obscured media reporting in the so-called “fog of war.” True to form, his writing's too covert for that, and “Hard Life in Country” is little more than a gratuitous snipe at one of his great bugbears, the rustic lifestyle. “Marquis Cha Cha,” though, serves up a monologue from a nauseating Brit expat in Latin America (were the Falkland Islanders worth rescuing?!). The album's brighter and funkier, but suffered an unjust commercial fate, as indie Kamera folded soon after release.

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Not Live!

Cootdog

This is actually the Fall's second studio album of '82. It stands in the long shadow cast by Hex Enduction Hour, but offers a distinct relief from that album's tower of scree (i.e., horns). "Marquis Cha-Cha" is an instance of Mark E. loosening up a bit while still putting forth a good lyric. FYI: the "untitled" tracks are actually a really good single: 8 is "Fantastic Life" and 9 is "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul." You should definitely download those. Disc 2 is "bonus" live material and not nearly as necessary as disc 1.

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eMusic Features

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Icon: The Fall

By Douglas Wolk

Roughly 75 people have been members of the Fall over the last three decades or so, but only one of them has been in every lineup: inimitable vocalist/lyricist/ranter Mark E. Smith, whose singular and monomaniacal vision drives the band. Smith's a bristling, hyperliterate, deeply eccentric presence, with a thick Manchester accent and a permanent scowl directed at a world that can't keep up with him; he's also got an ear for a riff like nobody's… more »

They Say All Media Guide

Room to Live originally appeared in 1982 and remains as essential to the Fall’s discography as the previous year’s Slates EP. Room to Live was similarly one of the great Fall collections of this era that was too short to be called an album and too long to be an EP or single. Its seven tracks epitomize the “Undilutable Slang Truth!” — the phrase scrawled across the cover — which in Mark E. Smith dialect translates as possibly the most archly political and scathing collection of diatribes the Manchester legend spewed forth onto record during what is arguably the group’s creative peak. Room to Live marks one of the most inspired periods of the group, the era that produced the masterful Hex Enduction Hour and was in part fueled in by the political upheaval in England circa 1982 during the Falklands War (the subject became a bone of contention with many artists, yet few railed so spitefully as the Fall). Mark E. Smith is at his very best lyrically when getting riled up against the middle class, such as on “Hard Life in Country” and the hilarious “Solicitor in Studio.” The latter track gathers a chugging momentum until peaking in uncontrollable feedback, and contains some of the most experimental and risky instrumental behavior his supporting cast ever brought to the studio. Room to Live may be a short, sharp stab of chaos, yet it remains undeniably one of the greatest pieces of post-punk genius the group ever recorded. – Dean McFarlane

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  • 02.12.11 Then they have Carl Lewis on He's got a ponytail and he's a vegan He talks a lot of wind
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  • 02.12.11 I can't stick musicians. I can't stand them, and being stuck in a studio with them I think that's my strength I can hear what they can't.
  • 10.21.10 And so backwards I look back with a scalpel eye on afternoons wandering the city with a flapping bag of cans for company.
  • 10.21.10 None of the rubbish had been cleaned up. And there were all these ghouls around the rubble. Not one of them is helping.
  • 10.21.10 I am one of the 3 per cent who was made to take speed.
  • 10.17.10 We're living in a re-issue world, filching from the past like magpies with a Tardis.
  • 10.17.10 I always thought Peron was a good sort, a good chap, definitively not a tosser.
  • 10.13.10 For some odd reason they think they know best.
  • 10.13.10 They should have just stuck our heads on that painting called The Hustler - the one with the cats and dogs smoking drinking and playing pool
  • 10.12.10 If it's me and your granny on bongos, then it's a Fall gig.
  • 10.12.10 And all hard-core fiends will die by me and all decadent sins will reap discipline.
  • 10.12.10 All the film ghosts will rise up with the sexually abused and the new youth.
  • 10.12.10 In LA the window opener switch is like a dinosaur cackle, a pterodactyl cackle. Jet plane circle over imported trees.
  • 10.08.10 A shadow walks behind you.
  • 10.08.10 A figure walks behind you.
  • 10.08.10 When I'm dead and gone my vibrations will live on in vibes on vinyl through the years. People will dance to my waves.