The Fall: Leave the Capitol

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When push comes to shove, I generally name the Fall as my favorite band. Choosing a favorite Fall record is a more difficult task, but one of my go-to answers is the Slates 10", which was recently reissued by Superior Viaduct (only the Fall would be obnoxious enough to make possibly their best record a fucking ten-inch). Even though it's only a 6-song EP, it still has much of what makes this greatest era of the Fall so great, from the brood of "Middle Mass" to the bash and crash of "Prole Art Threat" to the amphetamine-fed rockabilly of "Fit and Working Again," but "Leave the Capitol" is something of an aberration for the Fall, a rare sprig of gentleness growing among the usual weeds of aggression and alienation. These sweeter, gentler moments of the Fall don't come around very often, so when they do I tend to savor them, and "Leave the Capitol" may be the best one they ever recorded.