Mark E. Smith has never hidden his despotic tendencies, but on the cover of The Fall’s twenty-eighth studio album, he may have outdone itself: in amongst the blurred photos of his inconsequential bandmates, there’s no sign of the man himself… but what appears to be a close-up of Robert Mugabe. Nurse, my sides! Having said that, MES has somehow managed to squeeze his singular vision into other peoples’ work, from the techno surrealism of 2007′s Von Südenfed album with Mouse On Mars – still a career highlight – to his recent mumbles on recent Gorillaz cut ‘Glitter Freeze’ (key line: “Where’s north from here?”).

Back to the day job, and Your Future Our Clutter is arguably the highest-profile Fall release in years; sure, there’s been the infamous football and advert-soundtracks, but not since the early nineties have the group put out an LP on a label as ‘big’ as Domino. Consequently, the pressure’s on, a fact Smith deals in his own inimitable way; the song titles are his most elliptical in years -a mess of acronyms and numbers – while the back cover’s redacted proclamation “What Domino want they get” speaks for itself. Fortunately, the group sound taut and muscular and across the album’s nine sprawling tracks, locking into some pretty captivating grooves. The stompingly vari-fi glam racket of ‘Bury Pts. 1 + 3′ proves an early highlight, even if it sounds oddly like Biffy Clyro’s ‘Who’s Got a Match?’, while ‘Hot Cake’ is a slice of vintage C ‘n’ C-S mithering. Similarly, the cryptically creeping ‘Chino’ slithers across the speakers, seeing Smith ask himself “When can I quit? Can I leave this trench alone?”, and makes for both the album’s most assured moment, and its darkest.

There’s nary a musical misstep here, but as with most Fall albums, some things seem less right than others; ‘Weather Report 2′ begins with an unexpectedly elegiac tone (“You gave me the best years of my life/Nobody has ever called me sir in my entire life…”) – a surprise sequel of sorts to Smith’s career-best ‘Bill Is Dead’ – but its unwelcome descent into a jarring fuzz nightmare completely wrecks any sense of closure the album could have achieved, even if its lyrics are the LP’s finest. Likewise, the token cover of a sixties obscurity – this time around, Wanda Jackson’s ‘Funnel of Love’ – is interesting enough, but given the two extra songs that crop up on the album’s vinyl release, another original wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Yet even though The Fall has never been about anyone but Mark Edward Smith – when band members get too high-profile, they’re invariably given the boot – his presence here seems oddly perfunctory. When you can understand what the fuck the man is saying, YFOC is both electrifying and hilarious. However, the recent viral video which put the Fall in Downfall made a valid point about his recent lyrical content, and Smith seems happy to eschew even the most oblique narrative for inebriated utterances, including the first lyrical reference to Chicory Tip since Denim. At least when he used to spout nonsense, it was rooted in something – where once it was only the fantastic that was in league against him, now it seems to be the first enemy he can think of.

As ever, Smith claims this line-up is the Fall’s best yet, but for all its peaks, Your Future Our Clutter doesn’t quite coalesce as well as their best recent work. There’s nothing as broodingly funky as ‘Blindness’, nor as wistful as ‘Mountain Energei’, but the surge of adrenalin demonstrated here shows there may be a classic in this line-up yet. Then again, by the time this goes online, there’s every likelihood that the band may yet go to shit, with Mark E. Smith finally forced to enlist his granny on bongos. Fingers crossed-ah.