Boasting almost as many line-up changes and record releases as fellow iconoclastic northerners The Fall, it’s been 30 years since The Mekons first ventured out of Leeds with their punky folk-tinged alt.country agitprop. Natural finds them as bold and as challenging as ever, with a collection of songs inspired by ritual, paganism and sacrifice.
Although there’s an olde worlde motif to much of the material, such as on the witchcraft fable of White Stone Door or the opening chant of Dark Dark Dark, the group offer interesting twists on modern-day matters. The Old Fox is a wistful, harmonica-led ballad celebrating a feral beast roaming the inner city scavenging for food, while Burning In The Desert is a genuinely chilling tale of modern terrorism and the fanatics who are willing to die for a cause: “Martyrs queueing up for heaven”. It’s an astonishing blend of the ancient and the new, The Mekons paying lip service to generations of traditional English musical styles while looking off into the future. Folk music in its most organic form has always dealt in social commentary, so the 21st Century should be no different. An invigorating flipside to the heynonny- nonny part-time pretenders.
