After the stumbling diversion of Room To Live, the Fall right the ship and come up with another near-masterpiece as a result. You get the sense that even the band was beginning to understand how to bring the best work out of MES and vice-versa, possibly due to the amount of touring they were doing by this point. In his book The Big Midweek, bassist Steve Hanley talks about how some of the songs for this album came about during soundchecks, tour rehearsal sessions, or were built from scratch in the studio. In fact, it’s Steve’s basslines that drive much of this album: the bubbly melody that kicks off “I Feel Voxish,” the high-pitched rhythm of the incredible album opener “Eat Y’self Fitter,” his work playing against the vocal line on “Hotel Blöedel.” This album would be so much less impactful without his presence.

The confidence MES must have had in his band allowed him to attempt some Dadaist exercises in language throughout. “Fitter” sounds as if he has clipped lines from newspaper adverts (the title was apparently a catchphrase on Raisin Bran boxes at the time) and is commenting on them in turn. “Voxish” was his self-proclaimed “sound experiment,” where he gets playful with meter and alliteration. There’s no grand scheme or point being made; it’s just a man delighting as he perverts the Queen’s English.

Another figure that may have had an impact on the album was MES’s American wife, Brix Smith. As has been discussed throughout the albums from this period, her injection of pop smarts to the songwriting pushed the Fall in some fascinating directions through the ’80s. She only pops up twice on this album — singing and co-writing “Blöedel” and singing background vox on “Fitter” — but it’s no surprise that those are two of the catchier tunes on Perverted, with the latter coming as close to a verse/chorus/verse as you’ll find here. She loomed large in the band’s legend, and it all started here.