Consumer Guide Album

The Mekons: Horror [Fire, 2025]
Although Jon Langford sings the lead single on this unannotated CD, which is basically an acerbically associative capsule history of British imperialism and its dire aftermaths (some of them, anyway), it comes off as the brainchild of the glummer and more ideological Tom Greenhalgh, which in this horrendous Trump moment-we-hope seems all too apt even if you still believe that the American constitution has its uses. But though the mood is bitter, it's not desperate—the songs aren't what you'd call lively much less cheerful, but they are relaxed enough to make you not just believe but feel that the end is by no means in sight. Yet. A−