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If you don't know much about these 30-year veterans except that they're legendary, this probably isn't where to find out why. If you have any idea what I'm talking about, however, partake.
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It's pretty dour stuff on the whole, but delivered with playfully melodic wit and a certain poetic resignation usually found only in the hearts of forgotten souls and madmen (and maybe Tom Waits).
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Some things get better with age: The Mekons' latest features acoustic, pub-ready stompers such as 'Give Me Wine or Money' and 'Dickie Chalkie and Nobby.'
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Not all the songs are as delicate as 'White Stone Door,' though over all, this seems like a more restrained album than even "OOOH!," and is obviously far less rock-oriented than the Mekons’ early material.
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Natural sounds like the band's familiar, idealized dust-bowl Americana sound, with a little reggae, a little marimba and thumb piano, and strong overtones of Thomas Hardy. This was a good idea: For a British band that's fundamentally anti-commercial, it’s productive to dive into brambles and think about ancient ritual.
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SpinMuttering Jon Langford, golden-toned Sally Timms, and the rest of this sweaty eight-strong mob are at their red-eyed best here. [Sep 2007, p.134]
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MojoThree decades on, the Mekons are a veritable institution, but as Natural proves they're a still-evolving and effective one. [Sep 2007, p.105]
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Lonely harmonicas, keening fiddles, plinking kalimbas, and vaguely dubby drums twist in and out of the interwoven vocals, their melodies like ivy vines climbing a fence; the lyrics grow on you just as slowly, requiring several close listens before they start giving up their secrets.
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MagnetIt's full of loose sing-alongs, drunken chants and spooky ballads; of apocalypse, synicism and Satanism; of a jaded worldview that joyfully sees everything as --in the words of the opening track--"Dark dark dark." [Fall 2007, p.102]
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Natural, the latest in the group's long line of records, is, per Tweedy's dictum, truly post-apocalyptic folk, music for when the lights go out and hope burns only dimly. It's the Mekons unlikely "unplugged" bid.
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Natural, their first album of all new material since 2002’s Oooh!, is more of their brand of sparse, postmodern folk that will mostly appeal to their already devout niche of fans.
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Natural is their prettiest album; in spots it's almost pastoral.
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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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[The band] is at its most subdued and simmering here, with relatively little of the anthemic moxie it's normally so good at. Unfortunately, this means a lot of the songs blur together, even up close.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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JH.Sep 22, 2007Poetry life art money death hope despair.