The Sound (2) – All Fall Down

I'll just state it right from the start - to me, one of my absolute favorite albums of all time, to the point of making me write this. Don't be fooled, this is The Sound's best album, by far.

The reviews I'm reading here at the time I'm doing so touch all the essential and right points. Bleakness was mentioned, and rightly so. In nowadays' popular culture, the 80's are one of the most portrayed decades through a rose tinted glasses type attitude. But people who lived through that decade know it had a very particular bleakness that everybody felt, which then manifested itself in the culture, especially in the UK, Europe and New York in a more vociferous way. Very few bands and albums were actually able, and willing, to face that monster in the eyes.

This album was born of an act of rebellion by the band against WEA's inner pressures for a commercially viable album, arguing that the ones before didn't capture the public in that manner. Per Mike Dudley (original quote and source contained in the album's Wikipedia page):

"We thought [the label wasn't] giving us the that we were due and that if they really wanted a commercial album, they had got to put plenty of money behind it, which with both Jeopardy and From the Lions Mouth they hadn't really done [...] So when they turned around and said, 'The solution is for you to write more commercial songs', we thought, 'Fuck you', and went ahead and produced All Fall Down."

Perhaps the band was fueled by anger, perhaps by disillusion, perhaps by something else. But whatever it was, it shows throughout the album, and it allowed them to perfectly capture the 80's bleakness (and beauty born from it). Spirit wise, to me, all of that is best contained in Graham Green's bass throughout most tracks, like Red Paint. The thumping bass, sort of angry, almost guitar like, like a constant reminder of why they're making the album. In The Hothouse is the nearest album close to that aspect.

When my father was alive he had the vinyl pressing and decided in the late 90's to digitalize it so he could have it on CD. I knew he was very technically inclined, but for an amateur like him, he did a fantastic job. Amazing sound quality. It contains the rawness of the original pressing, that bass, all of it. A simple BASF CD-R with his amazing handwriting, which I still keep and truly treasure, and prefer to any version beyond the vinyl itself.

If anyone wants to truly know, truly feel what the 80's were actually like in the UK and Europe, its bleakness, its beauty that could only be born from it, this is the album. The "album of the 80's", and also its best. As criminally underrated as the band itself.

This is indeed an incredible record, with depth and beauty that rivals any of the records of the 80s held up as standard bearers. The fact that The Sound has flown under the radar for so long is unfathomable. "Party of the Mind" alone should be considered right up there with "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "The Cutter". Glad to see them finally getting the attention they deserved for so long.

Most people woud vote for 'From the Lion's Mouth' or 'Jeopardy' as the best Sound album but I think this is the one (and they are one of the very few bands of which I love every record), even though it is, ittedly, very bleak. I would take this over Joy Division any time. Perhaps the best album of the Eighties.