The Mekons

Modern folk delivered with gospel gusto by a choir made up of atheists -- this certainly sounded like a considered response to 9/11 when it came out in 2002, but it was apparently written and recorded beforehand, which underscores the Mekons' prescience or just their dumb, drunken luck. Either way, it's a thrilling ride that lets you spend 40 minutes thinking you could survive the coming religious war given enough comrades like this by your side. And if you don't, at least there's some decent music to play at your funeral.

Their best album in a decade doesn't exactly come up and give you a kiss. Half 9-11 fallout, half night thoughts of a band whose heyday is past, it begins with what seems a faux-folk trope until you realize that "Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem" is also the new crusade, and ends with the impassive boast, "We pride ourselves that our memory/Will vanish from the memory of the world." It's slow, sour, dark, grim--obsessed with treachery, conflagration, and death. For years the Time Out of Mind fan club has been finding unfathomable fatalism in folk songs that rarely gather the grounded gravity sustained here. Inspirational Verse (really, think about it): "Everyday is a battle/How we still love the war." (Grade - A)