Customer Reviews

Honky Tonkin

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I paid $50 for a used copy of the original Twin-Tone release of this CD, and it was worth every penny. It's one of the best albums by maybe the best rock'n'roll band out there. In theory, Honky Tonkin' is one of the Mekons' famed cowpunk records, and the country strains certainly show through. However, this record shows the Mekons gravitating towards the more punk/folk hybrid of "Curse of the Mekons", "Journey to the End of Night", and "OOOH!". The highlights of the album for me are Rico Bell singing on a brilliant cover of Gram Parson's "Sleepless Nights" and Tom Greenhalgh and Sally Timms (or is it Michelle Shocked?) on "Prince of Darkness", the last cut on the album. Other standouts are "Hole in the Ground" and "Charlie Cake Park", but every track is great.

Anyway, stop reading this review and go buy the CD already!

In the year or so since I first listend to the Mekons, I've snapped up almost everything they've done. They combine art rock, punk and country in a brilliant, sloppy, beautiful way, and I can't seem to get enough of them. This album took a while to grow on me-but when it did, it didn't make it out of my CD spinner for weeks.

Listen for some of their most haunted songs-"Prince of Darkness" and "Sleepless Nights," and just for the pure energy of it. Though the Mekons have aged better than most bands I can think of, this is them at their singin, swingin prime.

This is an incredible album which should be more widely available. Like So Good It Hurts, Fear and Whisky, and Rock 'n Roll, it is excellent music with great vocals and intricate, intelligent lyrics--the LP liner notes to all these albums reveal a maze of literary and political allusions. The music is mostly punky rock with country influences, although there's also a very countrified song and a ballad. Sally Tims's vocals are, as usual, ravishing, high, and pure-sounding. These are funny, meaningful songs about politics, philosophy, city life, miserable love, and crime. It's an album without a bad song, and to my mind the peak achievement of the Mekons.