Guitarist Brix Smith and bassist Steve Hanley consider This Nation's Saving Grace to be one of the band's best albums, an opinion widely shared by critics, showing the band operating just on the edge of the mainstream and at the peak of their accessibility and yet strangeness.
The Fall's line-up had been relatively stable for a number of years until the late 1984 promotional tour of their preceding album "The Wonderful and Frightening World of...", when long-time members and brothers drummer Paul Hanley and bassist Steve Hanley both quit the band in November 1984. Their departures were triggered by an incident on the first of that month when the band's equipment was stolen from a van left parked after a gig in Cardiff's New Ocean Hotel. Although replacement equipment was arranged, Smith blamed the musicians for the loss. The following night, while hitting their tour-bus headrests with a stick, shouted "who the fuck would be stupid enough to leave a fucking van outside a hotel with all the fucking gear in it." After this, both brothers decided to leave the band. Paul Hanley's departure became permanent, leaving Karl Burns the band's sole drummer, while Steve Hanley was eventually persuaded by Smith to come back after taking a paternity leave for several months.
Hanley was replaced by Simon Rogers, a classically trained musician whom Smith knew from an earlier collaboration with the dancer-choreographer Michael Clark. The self-taught Hanley has since admitted to being disillusioned by being replaced by a multi-instrumentalist, composer of ballets who had scored the 1982 top 20 hit "Cacharpaya" with folk music group Incantation. After Hanley's return in the midst of recording sessions for the new album, Rogers remained in the band but switched to guitar and keyboards. Smith marked Hanley's rejoining the band with the words "S Hanley! He's Back" etched into the run-out groove on Side 1.
The album was recorded between June and July 1985 at the London studios the Music Works and the Workhouse on Old Kent Road. John Leckie had produced the band's 1984 album The Wonderful and Frightening World Of... and had built a strong working relationship with Smith. Leckie's approach to the project was to both retain the Fall's rough edges and solid rhythm section, while emphasising Brix's more pop orientated guitar parts. His production created a heavier wall of sound than their earlier releases and Smith praised his ability to bring forward the drum and bass parts. Smith later said that what he and Leckie were trying to achieve was a "well produced bedroom sound".
Steve Hanley had often been the group's main riff writer on earlier albums, but due to his absence in the lead up to the album, Brix and rhythm guitarist Craig Scanlon wrote most of the song's foundation riffs. Hanley later said that on earlier recordings the whole group had contributed music, but for This Nation's most of the work was done by Brix and Scanlon, in a 60/40 ratio by his estimation. As Brix had begun her career as a bass player, most of her musical ideas were simple one-string riffs played on lead guitar but closely resembling bass lines. Although in awe of his playing when she had joined the band in 1983; on his return she told Hanley "I'll show you the bass line on my guitar and you Steve Hanley it up." Smith's lyrics are typically caustic throughout; the music critic John Mulvey wrote that at times the "vile is positively phantasmagoric".
The album opened with "Mansion", one of the Fall's few instrumentals, which the band often opened their live sets with. It is built around a guitar riff from Brix that evokes early horror and sci-fi film music and is clearly influenced by The Deviants' 1969 song "Billy the Monster". The following track was "Bombast" is again dominated by Hanley's bass. Smith's vocals promise to "bring wrath" to "bastard idiots". "What You Need" is built around Scanlon's circular guitar riff. The line "slippery shoes for your horrible feet" and song title are taken from an episode of The Twilight Zone. "Spoilt Victorian Child" incorporates unused lyrics intended for the Fall's 1979 debut album Live at the Witch Trials, but had been held back until the band found suitable "daft English music". The jerky and stuttering guitar riff written by Rogers is in 6/4 time, a signature Brix initially found difficult to master. Smith's lyrics contain a number of Victorian era reference points, including Pop-up books, aqueducts, poxes and the Cottingley Fairies.
The 1985 cassette version contains the bonus track "Vixen", a melodic surf music song written and sung by Brix, which although well-regarded by fans, is described by Pringle as "rather slight". It was never played live. The side one ended with Brix's "L.A.", written while the Smiths spent an extended stay in the city. Mark had a poor impression of the city and said that he "Hated it...Horrible town. If you like a beer, you are regarded as a tramp.
The side two opened with "Gut of the Quantifier", whose central bassline is reminiscent of the Doors's The Changeling. "My New House" details the Smiths' purchase of a semi-detached in Sedgley Park, Prestwich, close to Mark's childhood home where his parents still lived. A number of visitors remarked how unusual the house was, in particular the blue/grey colour scheme used each room. "Paint Work" is often described as the album's highpoint, and as "mildly psychedelic" in 2011 by critic Mick Middles. It consists of a semi-acoustic tape collage, stream of consciousness lyrics, Karl Burns' cymbal crashes and "meandering" lead guitar line provided by Scanlon. The drum heavy "I Am Damo Suzuki" is a tribute to the Japanese ex-pat vocalist Damo Suzuki of the Krautrock group Can, who Smith has often described as an early and major influence. The lyrics describe and evoke Suzuki's stage presence and singing style and are accompanied by Brix's descending chords and Burns' metronomic drums. The music is heavily influenced by the 1971 Can song "Oh Yeah", The word "Yarbles" in the title of "To NK Roachment: Yarbles" is borrowed from the novel A Clockwork Orange as Nadsat for testicles.
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