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Imperial Wax Solvent Image
Metascore
81

Universal acclaim - based on 9 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

  • Summary: The latest album from the British group is with yet another different lineup from 2007's "Reformation Post TLC."
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 9
  2. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. The Wire
    90
    Throw in an evocative, anthemically chanted lyrical snapshot, some cryptic tales and a blues rock cover and almost every successful Fall trick familiar from the last two decades is also deployed. All of which amounts to a vital late period masterpice. [June 2008, p.47]
  2. They may have been marking time slightly of late, but let your fears they'd never rise again be dispersed; this is the best Fall album of the century bar none.
  3. Some 50-odd musicians and several hundred songs down the line, the Fall's (we think) 27th album is one of their most adventurous and finest.
  4. For all the grunting and studio manipulation (the way the levels shift around, it's like there's a cat loose on the mixing board), this is as playful as the Fall has ever been, with long stretches of taking the piss.
  5. Imperial Wax Solvent is another remarkable batch of brilliantly deranged tales no whiskey-breathed war veteran across the bar could trump.
  6. Q Magazine
    60
    There are missteps, but consistency was never their selling point. [June 2008, p.138]

See all 9 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. TonyM.
    Aug 11, 2008
    8
    Extremely surprised as a B.O.F. I believed "The Fall" had peaked along time ago but this is the best in a decade.