JOHN Peel once said Of The Fall, “They are always different; they are always the same”.

How right the late voice of the BBC was. Come Monday, the Manchester mavericks will release Re-Mit, their 30th studio album since post-punk’s dawn in 1977; the one constant being sarky Mark E Smith as band leader; the constant difference being the ever-changing line-up.

Many have fallen by the wayside, but the 2013 line-up was brutally magnificent on Thursday night. Smith doesn’t go in for eye contact, his eyes almost closed, his face sour as vinegar.

Not even wife Elena Poulou, the Linda to Smith’s McCartney but a vastly better keyboard player, receives more than a cursory thrust of a microphone when it’s her turn to sing.

Keiron Melling’s pneumatic drums crash and smash and drill and thrill. Combine them with Peter Greenway’s abrasive lead guitar and David Spurr’s bludgeoning bass, and it is a mighty, moody, muscular racket, repetitious yet exhilarating.

Around them Smith prowls and growls, sneers and mocks like a grown-up Hamlet, itchy on the trigger, sometimes singing out of view, other times leaning over his audience, many as long-lasting as Smith himself.

Smith doesn’t do chatter, never mentioning the new album; that’s not his remit. Lyrics are often indecipherable, although you can hear snatches: “Can’t string a sent…”; “Blah, blah blah”; “Sir William” (the new number Sir William Wray), but it is as much the sound of the fury that signifies everything.

Fall favourites bring communal singing: especially Bury! and three encores with ever lengthening gaps between, White Lightning, Spartacus and Mr Pharmacist. “Thank you Yark,” said Mark. Thank you Mark; long may you bark.