Mekons

Following their highly praised 2022 album ‘Exquisite’, legendary postmodern, post punk, post human, past caring collective Mekons return with a brand-new album for 2025. Their first release on Fire Records, ‘Horror’ is a horribly prescient reflection of the world in its current miasma and how we got here.

‘Horror’ looks at history and the legacies of British imperialism with mashed up lyrics set against a typically eclectic sound that amalgamates everything from dub, country, noise, rock & roll, electronica, punk, music hall, polka and you can even take your partner for a nice waltz on ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’.

The roots of their global sound reflect their nomadic journey through time and space from Leeds to California in the West and Siberia in the East and is woven into the fabric and intricacies of their song creation…

Sounding like The Chills and R.E.M circa the I.R.S Records years, ‘Mudcrawlers’ sees just about the whole band joining Jon Langford on vocals speaking of Irish famine and refugees journeying to Wales.

Mekons: “In the dead of night a ship lays anchor at the mouth of a filthy Welsh river and unloads its human cargo onto steep banks of mud. Nineteenth Century Irish refugees arrive in Newport to escape famine at home. ‘War Economy’ shivers in the cold of such Boroughs spiked one-liners: “Clinical coercion will not achieve dominance!”

Sounding like its straight off a Jenny Holzer neon sign (she of Abuse Of Power Comes As No Surprise), it’s held together by a disgruntled swaggering riff that underpins an explosion of disquiet as disapprovingly delivered by Tom Greenhalgh with vocal embellishments by Rico Bell.

“The market is always right. Bombs keep falling. Stocks are rising. It’s a zero sum game and you’re definitely losing,” say Mekons.

Meanwhile, Rico takes the lead on the maliciously luscious ‘Fallen Leaves’ an appalled and appalling Hammer Horror take on climate breakdown reminiscent of Rolling Thunder Dylan that recalls The Pogues at their most introspective, its Celtic twilightism augmented by Susie Honeyman’s keening violin as the dying sun sinks down and the river Styx flows on in the pitch black night.

‘You’re Not Singing Anymore’ with its every-person bravado and reels with violin as it unfurls an unreliable story of the modern world’s hazy recollections of the past.

Mekons: “We were recording in Valencia, where General Franco drove democracy into the sea and somehow it was agreed that the horror must never be mentioned again.”

And there’s the Sea Dog yarn that needs to be spun on ‘The Western Design’ a sea shanty disguised as a travelogue of discovery that rises in waves to a Technicolor cinematic chorus.

Mekons: “Now hardly remembered, Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design dramatically changed England’s engagement with the wider world. It brought the state into the business of colonisation and Jamaica became Britain’s number one off shore imperial profit-generator.”

Elsewhere, there’s the aforementioned intricate waltz and vocal interplay of the tragic ballad ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’, a Victorian parlour period piece of too little too late. Whilst the distressed, beautifully Sally Timms delivered ‘A Horse Has Escaped’ offsets ‘Private Defense Contractor’ with all of its invasion of Iraq gothic Das Kapital vampire rêverie.

Arriving in Spain without instruments the band pick up what they can find lying around the splendid Valencian studio, sharing vocals throughout, with Lu Edmonds mightily holding sway on guitar, bass and piano while Steve Goulding provides the rhythmic aplomb. Almost 50 years in the making, these Mekons continue to astound, their sound, sentiment and method of delivery blended to perfection by bass player and studio wizard, Dave Trumfio.

The Mekons are Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Tom Greenhalgh, Dave Trumfio, Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Steve Goulding, and Lu Edmonds.

The Mekons are Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Tom Greenhalgh, Dave Trumfio, Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Steve Goulding and Lu Edmonds. 

Lester Bangs once wrote, “The Mekons are the most revolutionary group in the history of rock ‘n’ roll,” and although he wrote it tongue in cheek, that doesn’t mean he was wrong. Thoroughly uncompromising, creatively restless, at once witty and profoundly cynical, and seemingly incapable of repeating themselves, the Mekons are one of the few bands from the first wave of British punk who not only never turned their back on their guiding ideals, but clung to them with greater tenacity over time.