Horror＜Colored Vinyl＞

In his band the Waco Brothers, Jon Langford once wrote and sang a song called "Bad Times Are Comin Round Again," and the best known and longest lived of his many other projects, the Mekons, have often expressed a similarly playful cynicism about the state of the world. For most people, there comes a point where things going from bad to worse no longer seem especially funny, no matter how mordant your outlook may be, and that appears to be where the Mekons have found themselves in the year 2025. Horror is an album where the Mekons dark sense of humor has met its match as global political strife and a growing sense of polarization and anger have struck them in the heart, and the lessons of the past have been ignored. The mood of Horror is, in a word, dark, which makes the music a bit of a surprise -- this is some of the tightest and most accessible listening the Mekons have offered us though their nearly 50 years of record-making, from the doomstruck reggae of "The Western Design," the dubwise shuffle of "Surrender," and the Stones-influenced indie rock of "Glasgow" to the atmospheric yet spirited "Mudcrawlers" and the anthemic roots rock of "Youre Not Singing Anymore." If the performances dont exactly sound cheery, they clearly lack the sometimes wobbly undertow that is so often part of of their LPs, and producer Dave Trumfio (who also played bass on these sessions) has captured the Mekons with clarity and a dash of ghostly echo that fits the songs perfectly. With the full-size edition of the band on hand for this outing -- singer and guitarist Langford, singer Sally Timms, singer and guitarist Tom Greenhalgh, accordionist Rico Bell, drummer Steve Goulding, and multi-instrumentalist Lu Edmonds -- Horror aims for a full-bodied sound, and they achieve it without cluttering up the arrangements or weighing down the tunes, and the anger of "War Economy" and "Mudcrawlers" is served as well as the sorrowful contemplation of "Fallen Leaves" and "Surrender." Horror is not evidence that the Mekons have given up the fight against the powers that be that has always informed their music. It does sound, however, like theyre wondering if they can shout enough to make a difference at a time when its desperately needed, and its a question that needs to be addressed, while subtly demanding their listeners prove them wrong. That last part is up to you. ~ Mark Deming