The Mekons - Oooh! (2002)

What a long, strange trip it's been indeed. OOOH! (Out Of Our Heads) is the 25th anniversary recording by the ubiquitous Mekons, a band from Leeds that, in one incarnation or another, has been confounding and delighting both audiences and critics since their beginning. Jon Langford, the band's unofficial frontman, has cajoled, bribed, pleaded with, and threatened, by most of the band's original members -- Tom Greenhalgh, Sally Timms, Rico Bell, Sarah Casanova Corina, Steve Goulding, Lu Edmonds, Susie Honeyman, Ken Lite -- and a few guests from Chicago (where he resides) in Edith Frost, Kelly Hogan, and producer Ken Sluiter -- to churn out the finest Mekons album since The Mekons Rock & Roll, if not Fear and Whiskey. While the mix of country and rock tunes will be familiar to fans, the intensity will not. This is a Mekons recording that pulls out all the stops and brings their deeply rooted psychobilly country base to the fore while engaging their punk roots with abandon (they could show the Vines and the Hives more than a few new tricks) -- check out the first two tracks, "Thee Olde Trip to Jerusalem" and "Dancing in the Head." When slipping over into deeper country waters, as they do on "Hate in the New Love" and "The Way Through the Fire," as well as "Take His Name in Vain" (with a stunning chanted group chorus) and "Lone Pilgrim" (with an amazing vocal by Greenhalgh), the band indulge a certain British electric folk sensibility as well that wouldn't be out of place on an old Steeleye Span or Fairport Convention recording. In other words, these old dogs have plenty of life left in them as a band. If Langford could keep this lineup together for a reasonable amount of time, they might actually reach a few thousand more souls on their way into rock & roll history -- though given this fine disc, who can say how far into the future that might be? A great place to start, a fine place to continue, if you've been on the Mekons road for a bit, and if you are already a fan, this is essential.