Consumer Guide Album

The Mekons: I Love Mekons [Quarterstick, 1993]
Right, love songs, laid out casually across disc and lyric sheet--a country album without a happy ending. Jon and Tom are too cynical, but they're not too callow, so their scenarios generate recognizable permutations of lust if not ecstasy, emotion if not devotion, and when Sally Timms sings about that "Millionaire," they sound like the great old pros they are. Too often, though, love just doesn't seem like their subject--the only time the music achieves carnal knowledge of the message is on the sarcastic "Special" and the confused "I Don't Know." B+