The Mekons: Deserted
Richard Gehr on May 16, 2019
No group makes death and destruction sound as touchingly human as the Mekons, British expatriate folk-punk pioneers now struggling valiantly through middle age and the looming void. The far-flung combo recorded Deserted in the California desert, and the project turned into a series of rousing and angry but, ultimately, redemptive meditations on hope and survival in the age of DJT and Brexit. “Lawrence of California” and “HARAR 1883” invoke dusty British colonial exploits and the condemnations of American malfeasance in the Middle East. They turn their eyes to the sky in “Andromeda” and rise again in “After the Rain.”
