Grotesque (After the Gramme) is a 1980 album by The Fall. The music is a departure from that of the previous albums, 1979's Live at the Witch Trials and Dragnet. Marc Riley played organ on several tracks on the album. This was Paul Hanley's first album with the band, having joined earlier in the year aged just 15. The album was preceded by the singles, "How I Wrote 'Elastic Man'" and "Totally Wired", which were subsequently included on CD reissues of the album. The eye-catching full colour sleeve (the group's first) was drawn by Mark E. Smith's sister, Suzanne.
The album was much more outward-looking than its predecessor, Dragnet, and Smith's lyrical maturity was striking, reading as a state-of-the-nation address on "English Scheme" and "C 'n' C-S Mithering". The album also included the gothic horror of "Impression of J. Temperance" and the conspiracy theory-fuelled "New Face in Hell". In fact, a number of the tracks have particularly idiosyncratic titles: "The NWRA", representing the track's lyric, "the north will rise again" (not, as some supposed, "The North West Republican Army" — see Paintwork - Brian Edge, Omnibus Press 1989); "C 'n' C-S Mithering", a reference to cash and carries, specifically two warehouses near Manchester, and "WMC-Blob 59", WMC being a common abbreviation for Working Men's Club.
According to the Slates & Dates press release this album was, at one point, to be titled After The Gramme - The Grotesque Peasants.
The Canadian band The Creeping Nobodies took their name from the orange cassette tape depicted on the album cover.
"New Face in Hell" takes its name from a film which was later retitled "P.J."
Read more about Grotesque (After The Gramme): Reissues, Personnel
Famous quotes containing the word grotesque:
“I have found that anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the Northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)