THE FALL - SHIFT WORK

It was all changed when The Fall signed to Fontana. Guitarist Martin Bramah, who had founded the group with Smith, returned, replacing Smith's ex-wife Brix, who had been in the group since 1983. There were few cries of sell-out, however, when The Fall signed to a major; it was just part of an evolutionary process. The three Fontana albums, Extricate, Shift-Work and Code: Selfish were stunningly consistent. With Martin Bramah and keyboard player Marcia Schofield dismissed from the band, The Fall worked as a four-piece (Craig Scanlon, guitar; Steve Hanley, bass; Simon 'Funky Si' Wolstencroft on drums) for the first time in the group's career.

Shift-Work from April 1991 is another commercial Fall high-water mark; it contains Idiot Joy Showland, Smith's rant against bandwagon-jumping Madchester bands ("The shapeless kecks flapping up a storm, look at what they are: a pack of worms."), the one-time album title track, The War Against Intelligence, and the bucolic Edinburgh Man, a love letter to Mark E. Smith's then-adopted home city.

1. So What About It?

2. Idiot Joy Showland
3. Edinburgh Man
4. Pittsville Direkt
5. The Book Of Lies
6. The War Against Intelligence
7. Shift-Work
8. You Haven't Found It Yet
9. The Mixer
10. A Lot Of Wind
11. Rose
12. Sinister Waltz