#300 The Mekons - The Mekons Rock'n'Roll

Another one off the AMG. Have heard of these guys but never really heard them.

This is about as good as a punk band could be expected to sound in 1989, sounding smoothed out, more Everclear and late Green Day than anything truly confrontational, mixing in country sounds, which is about as far from punk as you reckon you could get. There's an offhanded British menace that evokes Gang of Four and the Fall, but its alongside some moments of actual melody and prettiness; the closer even breaks out the accordian and mellotron to go with the boy-girl crooning and reverbed-out guitar solo.

Despite the identity crisis, it mostly works. It's a little too pretty and arty to work as punk, not quite arty or pretty enough to work as art rock, but it works somewhere in between. The vocals are the main problem here, the male vocals sound worn out, and not in a good way, and the girl vocals sound a little too X, a little too Vaselines, which is to say, I don't love them. I think this is worth another listen. It didn't blow me away, but its curious instrumentation and general unpidgeonholability suggest it deserves closer consideration than these first-blush half-reviews tend to lend 3/5