Extricate by The Fall

Extricate, the Fall's 12th album, came out on 20 March 1990 with Craig Leon producing, and it was made right after Mark E. Smith's divorce from guitarist Brix Smith. Her backing vocals and poppy guitar are gone, and in a genuinely odd twist founding member Martin Bramah, who had quit in 1979 to start Blue Orchids, stepped back in, bringing a raw, almost rockabilly bite to some songs. Craig Scanlon, Steve Hanley and Simon Wolstencroft keep the machine turning underneath.

Lead single "Telephone Thing" flirts with the Madchester dance sound, though it grew out of Smith's work with Coldcut, who produced it and a reworked cover of the Monks. The shock is "Bill Is Dead", a slow, tender love song that began as a Smiths parody before Smith wrote a deeply personal lyric; it topped John Peel's Festive Fifty, the only time his favourite band ever did while he lived. NME gave the album 10 out of 10.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.