Cerebral Caustic

Front cover

Group

Mark E Smith – vocals
Brix Smith – guitar, vocals
Craig Scanlon – guitar
Steve Hanley – bass
Simon Wolstencroft – drums
Dave Bush – keyboards
Karl Burns – drums, guitar, vocals
Lucy Rimmer – vocals (track 5)

Recording

London late 1994.

Production

Mark E Smith and Mike Bennett

Releases

  • UK – 27 February 1995 – Cog Sinister – LP: PERMLP30; cassette: PERMMC30; CD: PERMCD30 (tracks 1-13)
  • UK – 5 July 1999 – Artful Records – CD: ARTFULCD24 (tracks 1-13)
  • Japan – 1995 – Permanent/Zero Corporation – CD: XRCN-7001 (tracks 1-15)
  • UK – 3 March 2006 on Castle – CD: CMQDD1299 (tracks 1-13, 15-31)
  • UK – 18 April –  Record Store Day 2020 – Demon Music Group –  special 25th anniversary pressing on 180g heavyweight ‘Bonkers’ splattered vinyl (tracks 1-12)

Track List

  1. The Joke (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 2:49
  2. Don’t Call Me Darling (Smith, ME/Scanlon) 3:35
  3. Rainmaster (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 3:27
  4. Feeling Numb (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 2:45
  5. Pearl City (Smith, ME/Burns/Bennett) 2:46
  6. Life Just Bounces (Smith, ME/Hanley, S/Scanlon) 4:47
  7. I’m Not Satisfied (Zappa) 2:56
  8. The Aphid (Smith, ME/Hanley, S/Scanlon/Wolstencroft/Smith, B) 2:46
  9. Bonkers In Phoenix (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 6:02
  10. One Day (Smith, ME/Bush) 3:31
  11. North West Fashion Show (Smith, ME/Burns) 3:30
  12. Pine Leaves (Smith, ME/Burns/Hanley, S/Scanlon) 3:40
  13. Middle Class Revolt (The Drum Club Prozac Mix) (Smith/Scanlon/Hanley, S)7:13
  14. Middle Class Revolt (The Drum Club Orange In The Mouth Mix)(Smith/Scanlon/Hanley, S) 7:51
  15. Glam Racket – Star (Smith, ME/Hanley, S/Scanlon) 3:23
  16. Jingle Bell Rock (Beal/Boothe) 1:09
  17. Hark The Herald Angels Sing (Mendelssohn/Wesley, Arrangement: Smith, ME) 3:10
  18. Numb At The Lodge (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 3:06
  19. One Day (Smith, ME/Bush) 3:36
  20. Rainmaster (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 3:43
  21. Feeling Numb (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 2:54
  22. The Joke (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 2:49
  23. Don’t Call Me Darling (Smith, ME/Scanlon) 3:46
  24. Pearl City (Smith, ME/Burns/Bennett) 3:00
  25. Life Just Bounces (Smith, ME/Hanley, S/Scanlon) 4:58
  26. I’m Not Satisfied (Zappa) 3:18
  27. The Aphid (Smith, ME/Hanley, S/Scanlon/Wolstencroft/Smith, B) 2:56
  28. Bonkers In Phoenix (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 6:14
  29. One Day (Rex Sargeant Mix) (Smith, ME/Bush) 3:36
  30. Bonkers In Phoenix (Alternate Mix) (Smith, ME/Smith, B) 6:21
  31. Mark E Smith & Brix Smith promo interview 7:39

 

Notes

Track 6 a new recording of the B-side from the White Lightning/The Dredger EP single
Tracks 13-14 remixes by The Drum Club of the title track from Middle Class Revolt.
Tracks 15-18 are from John Peel Session 18
Tracks 19-28 pre-release rough mixes
Tracks 29-30 remixes
Track 31 promo interview that accompanied original physical release

The album spent one week on the UK Albums Chart at number 67, 19 places lower than   Middle Class Revolt, marking the end of one of the group’s relatively more successful periods.

This was Dave Bush and Craig Scanlons last studio album with the group.

The album’s title is taken from a review in The Boston Globe by Jim Sullivan of the band’s 1994 album Middle Class Revolt.

There were long-standing rumours that an alternative, superior mix of this album existed, partly fuelled by Smith’s statement in an interview released to the press on a promotional cassette that he and Karl Burns had re-recorded the guitars after the rest of the group had been ejected from the studio. This claim was later clarified by Smith in an interview included on the Castle Music reissue’s bonus disc as referring only to opening track “The Joke”. In Simon Ford’s Hip Priest, Dave Bush was quoted as claiming to have been virtually erased from the album during the mixing process. The original “rough” mixes were included on the 2006 double-CD reissue by Castle Music and showed no major differences to the released version; the sound is harsher (possibly the result of being mastered from a copy of the cassette), but Bush is no more prominent.

The album again featured sleeve art by Pacal Le Gras. Brix Smith said of the artwork in her 2017 book The Rise, The Fall & the Rise “If that LP isn’t the worst Fall album, it definitely has the worst cover art. When I see it now, the skull clown is Mark. It’s prophetic. He looks like a fucking skull, and he acts like a fucking clown. It’s him. It’s life imitating art, and art imitating life.”

Reception for the album was mixed. Ned Raggett, reviewing it for AllMusic, gave it three stars, stating “Generally the band sounds like they’re having a great time…Smith himself sounds a touch disconnected around the edges, but makes up for it with some interesting vocal treatments and sudden interjections to leaven things up.” Jim Sullivan, reviewing the album for The Boston Globe, called it “another jagged pill from this long-churning engine of gleeful bile ‘n’ vitriol”. John Harris, in the NME, gave it 4/10, saying the album “can’t help but flip into moments that are worryingly generic” and that “the band sound unremarkable”. Trouser Press viewed it as a “prime-slice Fall in all its caustic, cerebral glory. Rich with barbed hooklines and canny catch-phrases from a band that continues to refine its deliciously jagged edge, Cerebral Caustic is the best Fall album in years and a good omen for its future.” The New Rolling Stone Album Guide describes Cerebral Caustic as “a furious return to noisy, reckless rant form”.