Middle Class Revolt [140g Clear Vinyl]

1994's MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLT, the second and last album of The Fall's brief tenure with Matador records, is the long-running and amazingly prolific band's best album of the '90s. This is probably The Fall's strongest work since the mid-'80s era, when singer/provocateur Mark E. Smith's stridency was tempered by the smart pop tendencies of his guitar-playing then-wife Brix.
Like those albums, MIDDLE-CLASS REVOLT features somewhat off-kilter guitar pop, downplaying the electronic tendencies of the band's turn-of-the-decade work in favor of catchy riff-based songs.
The guitars are most prominent on "Hey! Student," a song that the band had included in its earliest live sets, back in 1977, as "Hey! Fascist," and the punkish roar of "M5#1" and "Behind the Counter." Elsewhere, The Fall displays excellent taste in outside material by covering '60s avant-gardists The Monks' excellent "Shut Up!" and "War," a song from the mid-'70s art-rock merger of Henry Cow and Slapp Happy.