The Mekons

The Mekons go camping. Being the Mekons, they can't spend too much time around grass and stones without thinking of Brian Jones, and bomber jets on practice runs inevitably interrupt their idyllic hike through gorse and brambles. So the result is less a celebration of nature than a rumination on decay, with opener "Dark, Dark, Dark" setting a grim tone that carries through the album, echoed as needed by Susie Honeyman's mournful fiddle. "Cockermouth" (it's a quaint British market town), the standout track, finds some defiant joy in staring all this death in the face without blinking.

Thirty years after they formed in Leeds, and fifteen or so after most of them relocated to
America, the Mekons return to England for their quietest and weirdest album since 1982's
The Mekons Story. Replete with chants, harmonicas, found percussion and an extra
helping of haunted London holdout Tom Greenhalgh, Natural eschews the comforting
competence of unplugged á la MTV. Instead it delivers the ramshackle, ritualistic,... More >