New album: Horror
Legendary postmodern, post punk, post human, past caring collective Mekons return with a brand-new album for 2025. Their first release on Fire Records, ‘Horror’ provides a horribly prescient reflection of the world in its current miasma and how we got here.
‘Horror’ looks at history and the legacies of British imperialism with mashed up lyrics set against a typically eclectic sound that amalgamates everything from dub, country, noise, rock & roll, electronica, punk, music hall, polka and you can even take your partner for a nice waltz on ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’. The roots of their global sound reflect their nomadic journey through time and space from Leeds to California in the West and Siberia in the East and is woven into the fabric and intricacies of their song creation…
Sounding like The Chills and R.E.M circa the I.R.S Records years, ‘Mudcrawlers’ sees just about the whole band joining Jon Langford on vocals speaking of Irish famine and refugees journeying to Wales. ‘War Economy’ shivers in the cold of such Boroughs spiked one-liners: “Clinical coercion will not achieve dominance!” Sounding like its straight off a Jenny Holzer neon sign (she of Abuse Of Power Comes As No Surprise), it’s held together by a disgruntled swaggering riff that underpins an explosion of disquiet.
Meanwhile, Rico takes the lead on the maliciously luscious ‘Fallen Leaves’ an appalled and appalling Hammer Horror take on climate breakdown reminiscent of Rolling Thunder Dylan, that recalls The Pogues at their most introspective, its Celtic twilightism augmented by Susie Honeyman’s keening violin as the dying sun sinks down and the river Styx flows on in the pitch black night.
Almost 50 years in the making, these Mekons continue to astound, their sound, sentiment and method of delivery blended to perfection by bass player and studio wizard, Dave Trumfio. The Mekons are Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Tom Greenhalgh, Dave Trumfio, Susie Honeyman, Rico Bell, Steve Goulding, and Lu Edmonds.
Buy from: https://mekons.bandcamp.com/album/horror
SONGS:
1.The Western Design 04:38
2.Sad
3.Glasgow
4.Fallen Leaves 03:10
5.War Economy 02:55
6.Mudcrawlers 03:19
7.A Horse Has Escaped
8.Private Defense Contractor
9.Sanctuary
10.Surrender
11.You’re Not Singing Anymore 03:17
12.Before The Ice Age
Lyrics are HERE
Videos:
Reviews
German Rolling Stone:
TROJAN HORSE OF POP
Forty Years After Their Founding, Jon Langford Talks About the Lasting Power of the MEKONS
Now, it all started with Oliver Cromwell and the British Empire. Has he read Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell saga? Not the book, says Jon Langford, but he did watch the TV series. “A political soap opera with lessons for today. It seemed like a good idea to go back to the origins of the whole mess with The Western Design.” As for those who accuse him of “cultural appropriation” because the song—about the 1655 annexation of Jamaica—comes in an offbeat rhythm, he shrugs: “Honestly, I don’t get it. I just grew up with reggae. It would be ridiculous to forbid myself from playing it.”
The Western Design opens the new Mekons album Horror, a title Langford believes “works on many levels,” especially now that technological progress has “exhausted our ability to control our future.” The cover reflects this horror best, as does the song A Horse Has Escaped.
But haven’t the Mekons, ever since their founding in Leeds in 1976, always been a kind of Trojan horse in pop music? Langford laughs. “Yeah, maybe. But when we showed up in the middle of the night, they just sent us off into the desert.” Sure, they wanted to “scare the industry a little,” but they also recognized “the limits of punk.” Right from their debut single Never Been In A Riot, which was a counterpoint to the “massively misunderstood” Clash song White Riot. “We liked the energy,” Langford recalls—he and Tom Greenhalgh being the only remaining founding members—“but all that bravado seemed uninteresting. A bit overblown. Heavy metal already existed! So we wanted to cool things down with an anti-macho song.”
Poetry Over Slogans
Now, in 2025, Horror turns things up in a way only the Mekons can. Poetry still triumphs over clichés, dialectics over convenient slogans. The album mixes salon waltz (Sad), a stripped-down Stones riff (Glasgow), and a tight nod to their early heroes Gang of Four (War Economy), alongside the spoken-word apocalypse of Before The Ice Age and the anthemic folk-rock banger You’re Not Singing Anymore.
Langford already had that song in his pocket when the eight band members traveled from Chicago (Jon, Sally), New York (Steve), California (Dave, Rico), and the good old UK (Susie, Lu, Tom) to Valencia, where a friend offered them a studio—one previously praised by other friends like Robert Lloyd (Nightingales) and Janet Bean (Freakwater) for its great equipment. “I didn’t even have to pack my guitar—just my swim trunks,” Langford says. A bit of swimming, great food down by the docks, and then “eight hours in the studio.”
That’s how “relaxed” things can be in Valencia. But of course, it’s also the city where General Franco “drove democracy into the sea.” For a long time, an omertà surrounded the crimes of his regime. Before recording, Langford read extensively about Valencia, the mass graves, the DNA tests, and the story of an 82-year-old woman who discovered that her father had been buried there—murdered when she was just six years old.
You’re Not Singing Anymore tells of how the past refuses to stay buried, even when people try—“because the truth always finds its way to the surface.” Other songs, like Private Defense Contractor, emerged spontaneously during late-night sessions.
For Exquisite (2020/22), they had to work remotely due to the pandemic. But the Mekons are never truly the Mekons unless all eight members are in the same room with a few ideas bouncing around. “That’s when this special energy happens, and we just crank out the songs together.”
“I Didn’t Even Have to Pack My Guitar—Just My Swim Trunks.”
By the time Columbia University hosted a symposium in 2014 alongside the documentary Revenge of the Mekons, featuring Jonathan Franzen and filmmaker Mary Harron, the cultural relevance of these art-school dropouts was beyond question.
“It was bizarre being the only Mekon on stage,” Langford recalls, surrounded by people he “totally admired.” Vito Acconci read and read from a long script until the moderator had had enough. Then it was Franzen’s turn—he simply read the lyrics to Dear Sausage. “That was a fantastic compliment because it meant: This speaks for itself. It was a great response from an artist and really beautiful.”
The only thing that could top it for Jon Langford this summer? Getting to exhibit his artwork at the museum in his hometown, Newport, Wales. When he moved to the U.S. in 1991 for love, he found himself “writing a lot about Wales. The unconscious mind writes most of the songs, after all.” Staying connected to Newport, creatively and personally, has always been important to him. “But my painting and my songs—they’ve always been part of the same thing.”
From Medienkonverter:
German Rolling Stone:
TROJAN HORSE OF POP
Forty Years After Their Founding, Jon Langford Talks About the Lasting Power of the MEKONS
Now, it all started with Oliver Cromwell and the British Empire. Has he read Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell saga? Not the book, says Jon Langford, but he did watch the TV series. “A political soap opera with lessons for today. It seemed like a good idea to go back to the origins of the whole mess with The Western Design.” As for those who accuse him of “cultural appropriation” because the song—about the 1655 annexation of Jamaica—comes in an offbeat rhythm, he shrugs: “Honestly, I don’t get it. I just grew up with reggae. It would be ridiculous to forbid myself from playing it.”
The Western Design opens the new Mekons album Horror, a title Langford believes “works on many levels,” especially now that technological progress has “exhausted our ability to control our future.” The cover reflects this horror best, as does the song A Horse Has Escaped.
But haven’t the Mekons, ever since their founding in Leeds in 1976, always been a kind of Trojan horse in pop music? Langford laughs. “Yeah, maybe. But when we showed up in the middle of the night, they just sent us off into the desert.” Sure, they wanted to “scare the industry a little,” but they also recognized “the limits of punk.” Right from their debut single Never Been In A Riot, which was a counterpoint to the “massively misunderstood” Clash song White Riot. “We liked the energy,” Langford recalls—he and Tom Greenhalgh being the only remaining founding members—“but all that bravado seemed uninteresting. A bit overblown. Heavy metal already existed! So we wanted to cool things down with an anti-macho song.”
Poetry Over Slogans
Now, in 2025, Horror turns things up in a way only the Mekons can. Poetry still triumphs over clichés, dialectics over convenient slogans. The album mixes salon waltz (Sad), a stripped-down Stones riff (Glasgow), and a tight nod to their early heroes Gang of Four (War Economy), alongside the spoken-word apocalypse of Before The Ice Age and the anthemic folk-rock banger You’re Not Singing Anymore.
Langford already had that song in his pocket when the eight band members traveled from Chicago (Jon, Sally), New York (Steve), California (Dave, Rico), and the good old UK (Susie, Lu, Tom) to Valencia, where a friend offered them a studio—one previously praised by other friends like Robert Lloyd (Nightingales) and Janet Bean (Freakwater) for its great equipment. “I didn’t even have to pack my guitar—just my swim trunks,” Langford says. A bit of swimming, great food down by the docks, and then “eight hours in the studio.”
That’s how “relaxed” things can be in Valencia. But of course, it’s also the city where General Franco “drove democracy into the sea.” For a long time, an omertà surrounded the crimes of his regime. Before recording, Langford read extensively about Valencia, the mass graves, the DNA tests, and the story of an 82-year-old woman who discovered that her father had been buried there—murdered when she was just six years old.
You’re Not Singing Anymore tells of how the past refuses to stay buried, even when people try—“because the truth always finds its way to the surface.” Other songs, like Private Defense Contractor, emerged spontaneously during late-night sessions.
For Exquisite (2020/22), they had to work remotely due to the pandemic. But the Mekons are never truly the Mekons unless all eight members are in the same room with a few ideas bouncing around. “That’s when this special energy happens, and we just crank out the songs together.”
“I Didn’t Even Have to Pack My Guitar—Just My Swim Trunks.”
By the time Columbia University hosted a symposium in 2014 alongside the documentary Revenge of the Mekons, featuring Jonathan Franzen and filmmaker Mary Harron, the cultural relevance of these art-school dropouts was beyond question.
“It was bizarre being the only Mekon on stage,” Langford recalls, surrounded by people he “totally admired.” Vito Acconci read and read from a long script until the moderator had had enough. Then it was Franzen’s turn—he simply read the lyrics to Dear Sausage. “That was a fantastic compliment because it meant: This speaks for itself. It was a great response from an artist and really beautiful.”
The only thing that could top it for Jon Langford this summer? Getting to exhibit his artwork at the museum in his hometown, Newport, Wales. When he moved to the U.S. in 1991 for love, he found himself “writing a lot about Wales. The unconscious mind writes most of the songs, after all.” Staying connected to Newport, creatively and personally, has always been important to him. “But my painting and my songs—they’ve always been part of the same thing.”
From Medienkonverter:
Nach über 50 Jahren Chaos, Kreativität und klanglicher Weltreise sind die ‘Mekons’ zurück – und sie haben nichts von ihrem Biss verloren! Ihr neues Album ‘Horror’, das am 4. April 2025 über Fire Records erscheint, verspricht eine düstere, wilde und doch herrlich verspielte Auseinandersetzung mit britischer Geschichte und globalen Abgründen.
Bereits die erste Single ‘Mudcrawlers’ katapultiert dich zurück in die Tage, als ‘R.E.M.’ und ‘The Chills’ bei ‘I.R.S. Records’ ihre Magie versprühten. Hier singt Jon Langford über irische Flüchtlinge, die in Wales an schlammbedeckten Ufern strandeten – musikalisch so melancholisch wie ein Sonnenuntergang im Regen. Doch das ist erst der Auftakt! ‘War Economy’ wird dich mit seinem zornigen Riff und Jenny-Holzer-Vibes ordentlich durchrütteln, während ‘Sad And Sad And Sad’ beweist, dass man sogar beim Walzer über die Tragik des Lebens nachdenken kann. Und ‘Fallen Leaves’? Eine Dylan-mit-Pogues-verrührte Hymne über den Klimazusammenbruch, bei der Susie Honeymans Geige klingt, als würde der Fluss Styx persönlich den Beat vorgeben.
Die Mekons haben das Release in Valencia aufgenommen, ausgerechnet dort, wo einst Franco die Demokratie versenkte – und das Album strotzt nur so vor historischem Subtext und musikalischer Experimentierfreude. Mal schippern sie mit ‘The Western Design’ in Shanty-Gewässer, mal bringen sie dich mit ‘A Horse Has Escaped’ in ein viktorianisches Drama, das selbst Charles Dickens die Tränen in die Augen treiben würde. Ob Punk, Polka oder Dub – die Mekons verschmelzen alles zu einem Sound, der die Jahrzehnte ebenso trotzt wie sie selbst. Und auch mit fast einem halben Jahrhundert Bandgeschichte beweisen sie: Langweilig ist anders! Wenn du bereit bist für ein Album, das dich tanzen, nachdenken und vielleicht ein bisschen verzweifeln lässt, dann markier dir den 4. April fett im Kalender. Die Mekons kommen – und sie haben keine Angst, tief im Schlammbad der Geschichte zu wühlen.