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Natural

by

Mekons

 
Natural

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Avg: 3.5 (32 ratings)

The Mekons stride on, if a bit more softly this time, into their fourth decade.

  • We Say...

    Review by Chris Nickson

    The only constant with the Mekons is change. From one disc to the next you never know where they’ll go. They’ve been gleefully defying expectations since their earliest days: first they were a punk band that often played slow songs, then they became purveyors of socialist honky-tonk; later they ventured into dance music. This time around, they've made a largely acoustic album conceived and recorded in the bucolic English surroundings of the Lake District – home to Wordsworth, Coleridge and, of course, those waving daffodils - of Sussex. .

    Don’t be fooled into thinking they’ve gone all calm and peaceful, though; there’s a dark undertow to songs like “The Old Fox” and “Zeroes and Ones” that bespeaks a post-apocalyptic thunder. The often quite retiring Tom Greenhalgh is front and centre, taking the lead on several tracks, while the usually effusive Jon Langford plays a backup role for much of the album — even his guitar work is muted, for the most part (although you can hear him wailing on harmonica). Musically, it’s the band's typical mix of the imaginative and the ramshackle, sometimes astonishingly lush and soothing (the lilting, reggae-infected “Cockermouth”) and sometimes as raw and stark as a Saturday night head wound (“Dickie Chalkie and Nobby”).

    As the band's eight members age, they seem to be looking afresh at their English roots, even though some of them have long lived elsewhere. On 2002's OOOH, there was “Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem” (named for England’s oldest pub, in Nottingham), a celebration of the history of British political protest; here that vision has expanded to consider both Britain’s past and a present that struggles to find a green and pleasant land even now that those dark satanic mills are gone, consigned to the industrial dump by a service economy. Yes, there’s a certain bleakness to it, but maybe that’s just a reflection of the world today. Ultimately, it’s a testament to the band that after 30 years they’re still taking chances, and they don’t have a shtick. The Mekons stride on, if a bit more softly this time, into their fourth decade.

  • They Say...

    Review by Mark Deming, All Music Guide

    The Mekons are celebrating their 30th anniversary in 2007 as they release their 26th album, Natural, which to the uninitiated might sound as if the band were bowing to the ravages of time with its relaxed tempos, emphasis on acoustic instruments, and general reluctance to rock out in the traditional manner. However, this overlooks the fact that the Mekons have never had much truck with how things are "traditionally" done; the Mekons have rarely sounded as if they were following the same musical path on two consecutive albums, and while the aggressive stance of 2002's OOOH! (Out of Our Heads) and 2004's Punk Rock has taken a back seat to a more measured and subtle approach, Natural certainly fits in with the group's great tradition of intelligent ranting. Most of Natural suggests the Mekons sitting around the campfire, perhaps after some failed revolutionary action has knocked out the power, singing songs that at once reflect their cynicism and offer some faint hope for a world where either justice or cheap beer is in ready supply. "You don't have to believe in the end," from "Cockermouth," is the benchmark of the album's semi-optimism; "Dark Dark Dark," "Dickie Chalkie and Nobby," and "Give Me Wine or Money" all offer sketches of resistance in a world that isn't much interested in their campaign; and the closer, "Perfect Mirror," calmly contemplates the final defeat. In the midst of all this, the Mekons do find space for one noisy rocker, the digital-age rant "Zeroes and Ones," while an undertow of electric noise adds to the menace of "Dark Dark Dark," suggesting once again that the Mekons don't put much stock in even their own self-imposed rules. Natural is a quiet but disconcerting snapshot of a world of chaos, which is to say it depicts a world not so different than the one that saw the birth of the Mekons in 1977, and confirms their message has remained constant even when their musical approach has not.

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