Which album do you feel is good, even great, but could have been so much better for whatever reason(s)? I tried to include all "regular, official releases", which counts for the presence of Seminal Live, 27 Points, and 2G+2, while leaving out arguably better releases such as A Part of America, Therein and The Legendary Chaos Tape.

My choice was easy: Levitate. There are so many great ideas here, and the songs that really work--4 1/2 Inch, The Quartet of Doc Shanley, some others--really push the boundaries of musical convention. The techno influences are, IMHO, incorporated with far greater musical (if not financial) success than on The Infotainment Scan.

Yet this album lacks something. It seems too thrown together, too slapdash at times. One or two too many covers. And while I enjoy some more subdued tracks that many fans can't stand (Married, 2 Kids and Gentleman's Agreement on
Code: Selfish, Everybody But Myself and the title track here), the title track could benefit from a more lively arrangement. Maybe a producer in addition to--or instead of--MES might have helped?

Anyway, I'll be interested in seeing what albums others choose.

levitate....by far

Pervted by Language. My favorite sounding Fall, Mark's voice in perfect form. It just seemed it could have been their best with some more time, studio version of Tempo House, maybe Backdrop or some other epic to round things out.

Sorry to be so predictable (judging by vote results do far)…but its Levitate…

It’s a real paradox this album…it’s obvious that the group were keen to do something different and experimental, yet at the same time they sound so tired and uninspired.

There’s not much on this album I can get really enthusiastic about, the title track’s pretty good and there are flashes of greatness elsewhere, but too much of it is just aimless doodling…(sorry Julia Nagle fans but ‘Jap Kid’ is an all-time Fall low point).

And yet…with a bit of judicious pruning and someone to tell them to stop arsing about and get focused…it could have been, if not the greatest Fall album ever, so much better than it actually is…

I chose "Shiftwork." For some reason, I want to like this album more than I do.

I think the band got off-track with the subsequent couple albums. However, "Shiftwork" seems only slightly off to me. In spots on Unutterable and TRNF... they realize some of the unrealized potential left over from "Shiftwork."

BTW: I have come across very few copies of "Shiftwork" in the US, then (1991) or now. I always wondered how official this release really was. Maybe it was more popular in other countries.

It was out of print for a while before being reissued by Voiceprint in 2002.

When first released, it made #17 in the UK charts, but it was not issued in the US at the time.

Yeah, i am pretty sure I paid import price on this one (hard to remember -- long time ago).

#17 that is impressive, especially when one considers what a weird album that "Shiftwork" was. actually #17 sounds about right -- in my ideal world it should have been about #17 (or maybe #11) after 10 straight #1's (the olde records) and one #6 or 7 (that is, Extricate).

I'll go with 'Shiftwork" as well. I remember when I first heard it-- the first time a Fall album didn't thrill me at least a little from the first song. It just feels so plain and obvious... yet there's this stripped-down quality that could have been great, and some nice use of violin I think. "High Tension Line" I find maddening: a pretty good riff let down by bland vocals and uninteresting lyrics. Usually it's the other way around.

That said, I still revere "The Mixer" and "You Haven't Found It Yet." And I can listen to the whole thing pretty easily. Thus it's a misfire rather than just a weak album (like Cerebral Caustic).

Andy

Again I'm left to ponder differences there are on the U.S. releases against the releases in Blighty,especially after the result of this particular Poll, personally I thought "Live At The Witchtrials" was pretty much unrealized. <_<