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Room to Live, subtitled Undilutable Slang Truth!, is the fifth studio album by the English post-punk band the Fall. It was released on 27 September 1982 through record label Kamera.

Background

Room to Live was recorded as a quick followup to Hex Enduction Hour, which had been released in March of the same year. It was to be Marc Riley's last album with the group.

The group had originally entered the studio to record a single, but Mark E. Smith prevailed upon them to record more songs, all of which were new to the band and had not previously been rehearsed or performed live. In accordance with this experimental approach, members were deliberately excluded from certain tracks. Smith also stated of the songs that "some of them are just me and Karl double-tracked" Whilst these remarks resulted in considerable conjecture among fans, the exact lineups for each track have never been properly confirmed. In a letter to City Life magazine in April 1984, Smith noted that Riley only played on two tracks on Room to Live, and in 2008 Riley confirmed via his BBC6 radio show that he did not appear on all tracks. In his book "The Big Midweek", Steve Hanley states that "Marquis Cha-Cha" was recorded by a trio of himself, Burns and Smith and also confirms the role of Arthur Kadmon (from Ludus and credited as "Cadman") in the recording of "Hard Life in Country" at a session to which neither Craig Scanlon nor Marc Riley were invited. Hanley's version, however, appears to refute the much-rumoured story, as relayed by Mick Middles in his book "The Fall" (co-authored with Mark E Smith), that suggested that Kadmon recorded approximately sixteen seconds of guitar and was then dismissed. Drummer Paul Hanley described the recording of the album as "a fucking nightmare. You'd turn up and find Smith had only invited half the band, or brought in other musicians without telling anyone!".

The album was recorded at Cargo Studios in Rochdale over a two-week period prior to the group's tour of Australia and New Zealand in July and August 1982, and thus songs from the record feature heavily on the live album Fall in a Hole.

Room to Live has been described as the band's most overtly topical album.

Critical reception

The album was described as "slapped together and half-baked" and "rough around the edges" compared to Hex Enduction Hour, although this was considered by writer Dave Thompson (who described it as "the sound of the band at its most spontaneous, the sound of Smith at his most inchoate") to be intentional, and Smith himself stated "I wanted to do something spontaneous...to get back to the old Fall way of recording songs straight off the top of our heads". It was also described as "a more self-indulgent delivery" than its predecessor. Trouser Press commented on "a sparser, less rhythmic sound than Hex Enduction Hour", going on to say "Smith is in top lyrical form, with pungent, satirical views of British life: 'Marquis Cha Cha' offers biting commentary on the Falklands War." AllMusic's Dean McFarlane described it as "possibly the most archly political and scathing collection of diatribes the Manchester legend spewed forth onto record during what is arguably the group's creative peak" and "one of the greatest pieces of post-punk genius the group ever recorded".

Track listing

;Notes

The 1983 German pressing of the album added the 1981 single "Lie Dream of a Casino Soul" and its B-side, "Fantastic Life", to the end of side B.