Incredible...

Review Score: (10/10)
The more I listen to this album the more incredible it appears to be. I first got into Madness through fascination with the 2-Tone scene of the late 70's. The Specials were for awhile my "all time favorite band" but long after as my music tastes wandered from thing to thing and matured, it was Madness that endured. They are in a total league of their own, with the closest thing to them I have yet to find to be Blur(while they were still "British" and not wanting to become Americans.) I'm suprised no one has reviewed this album, because this album, like The Jam's All Mod Cons, Blur's Parklife, and before both of them the Kink's Village Green Preservation Society, is a work of art in British guitar-pop music tradition. My favorite Madness album was for a long time "Absolutely", their 2nd, and 2nd most ska orientated(as well as last overall "ska" album pretty much altogether), but overtime, Rise and Fall has become not only my fav Madness, but one of my all time favorite albums, period. The Kinks, the Small Faces, the Who, the Smiths, and today Blur and maybe Supergrass..Madness is one of the great British guitar pop bands with a sense of tradition, not to mention simply one of the greatest singles bands of all time and, at their peak, the most popular British band since the Beatles.(In Britain anyway, what do Americans know anyway?)

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