The last time I saw the Fall at Dingwalls, they were strictly a subsistence-level act, Mark E Smith and Julia Nagle struggling on with a fill-in drummer after the group proper combusted during an American tour. Since then, the duo have built up a new band or perhaps that should be two bands. There is the studio Fall, still making punchy, complex and inventive albums like last year's The Marshall Suite and their latest, The Unutterable. And there's the live Fall, which doesn't quite measure up, either to the band's brilliance on record or to the virtuosity of previous live line-ups.
The spirit isn't lacking: cocky young recruits Adam Helal and Neville Wilding do their stuff with aplomb, pushing the thumping bass and vindictive surf guitar respectively. But the sound rarely transcends standard garage-band dynamics; it's only when Nagle switches from guitar to keyboards that more interesting textures creep in.
Smith himself looks more battle-scarred and lemon-faced than ever. He grudgingly sidles on to the stage in his leather jacket looking like a sullen copper facing another day interrogating shoplifters. As a singer, Smith has almost entirely dispensed with consonants, and mostly sounds like a half-hearted W C Fields impersonator trying to dislodge a fishbone from his throat. Perhaps he's just had enough of the stage routine - you can only imagine what it must be like playing Fall gigs for 23 years of your life. He only really seemed to enjoy himself on the spirited rock 'n' roll revamp Foldin' Money.
A rather desultory set did the business on the more straightforward numbers - Touch Sensitive, The Joke, Wilding's sub-Stranglers number Hands Up Billy. The final encore was an unexpected revival of the 1985-vintage Paintwork - a spirited crowd-pleaser but a reminder that too much of the time, this line-up resembles a competent Fall tribute band (except that they don't play that many old Fall covers).
And yet there were a couple of moments I wouldn't have missed. One was a version of Dr Buck's Letter from the new record - its electronic creak entirely transformed into a moody semi-funk groove, as close as the Fall get to the Meters. And there was a delicate synthesiser interlude, over which MES intoned dryly and more or less intelligibly. One phrase rang clear as crystal: "What a pain in the arse this bloody group is" Who says he doesn't speak for his frustrated following?
• The Fall tour continues at the Lomax, Liverpool (0151-707 9977), tonight and the Liquid Room, Edinburgh (0131-225 2564), tomorrow.
