Fear and Whiskey

Mekons have 921 fans on Deezer as I write this review. That places them firmly into niche territory, so let's have a listen to find out why this album has been deemed essential.

Ah, founding a new genre by melding two existing ones, I see.

Yeah this is weird. It rules, added to my digital library. Another of the delightful discoveries this generator brings us!

1.9

There is nothing I need less of in my life than "cowpunk". That's not to say I instantly hated the album, if anything the novelty of these two genres coming together was well-executed and sort of cool to hear.
But what's up with punk singers always putting as little effort as possible to sing well? The lead guy here sounds straight sloshed the whole time. It's so frequent in these punk entries that it might as well be a staple for the genre, and the appeal totally eludes me. Yet another reason Mekons will not make it to my rotation anytime soon.

It was OK, though it certainly didn't overly impress me.

Neinspirisana nasumično povezana gomila zvukova i stilova.

Feels like artist like madness and social distortion perfected the sound more than a decade later.

But it’s cool to both see the outlaw punk and it’s early farm and post punk bands actually be a little - punk, even with a fiddle.

Mostly great spots with a few very weak response but that’s on last dance makes up for all of it.

I don't know if I enjoyed this album enormously, but I'll be darned if it isn't super unique. It really holds your attention, and it is very worthy of being on this list just for the experience.

3.5/5.0: Very Good

i didnt like this but i gotta give them points for trying something, not sure what exactly but something

Heel soms pakt dit wel, vooral als er meer sprake is van praten dan zingen. Maar voor het grootste gedeelte van dit album geldt: stel dat het wel goed uitgevoerd was, dan was er een vergeetbare 3 geleverd.

I've never even heard of this group.

And, uh, yikes. I don't like this at all. It sounds like a bad local band at a pub, with absolutely atrocious production. I think I can pull together a list of 1001 albums that aren't on this list which are better than this album.

The opener "Chivalry" houses what is surely one of the worst vocal performances I've ever heard, with absolutely no exaggeration on my part. I'm undecided whether it's a deliberate work of genius or just a load of obnoxious wailing. In fact, that sentiment can be applied to the album as a whole in a sonic regard, although it improves markedly from there on.

This is an utterly bizarre and consistently thrilling punk/alt-country album - I was dreading it based on the brief Wiki description, but alas my fears were misplaced. Imagine The Damned undergoing frontal lobotomies and chucking some steely Americana guitar / harmonica into the mix, and you aren't a million miles off.

Why the fuck do I like this when I generally hate anything vaguely resembling country with a burning passion? Perhaps I'll never be able to understand.

On paper this sounded interesting: punk but bring in country/bluegrass instrumentation? Sure!
In execution you get crappy singing, electronic-recoding-sounding instrumentals, all over the place. The more dissonant Beatles tracks put through a meat grinder.

Черговий британський альбом з 80х по квоті цього списку. Друга пісня прям сподобалась, але все інше - зовсім ні. Послухав і забув.

Not quite bad enough to be a 1/5 (more due to some of the albums that i have given a 1 to, but not far off)

More post-punk... but make it slightly country?

My first impression is that Tom Greenhalgh cannot sing. My second impression is that Jon Langford can't sing either. Weirdly they sound a bit better in combination and I have no idea why that should be the case.

I nearly did a little cheer when my adopted hometown got a shout out, but then I zoned out for a little bit. I was very much snapped back to attention when I heard Jacqui Callis say "my sex drew back into itself tight and dry" (which resulted in me googling the lyrics to double check I heard her correctly).

I think parts of this are abysmal, especially the singing, but for some reason it started to grow on me over the length of the full album. I think it might be because they sounded like they were enjoying themselves so much. I would guess that they're great fun to see live. Particularly if you go into the gig absolutely hammered.

I cannot objectively justify this marking at all, so I'm not really going to try:

3/5

Another mid british band.

Knowing that the Mekons are Jonathan Franzen's favorite band didn't put me in the right mood exactly, but just 30 seconds into Fear and Whiskey I realized they too were a band for me. In a sense, they're the Grateful Dead of punk rock: a collective more than a band that incorporates elements of country into the schematics of their original approach and emphasizes the live show. But they're also something else entirely: I'm assuming they do not have legions of fans but thousands in the know, and while the Dead are essentially a live band w/ album footnotes, the Mekons are real studio folk. Full of warmth, humor, modesty, they yet know they're onto something. 'I wanted to say fall in love w/ me / I wanted to say fall in love / It'll be alright.'

I could've used some whiskey listening to this. Not bad, but the country/punk blend wasn't doing it for me. Neither influence was very strong and the result was just not enjoyable. 2/5

This shit sucks.

This was really neat. Completely unexpected and a very unique sound with the combination of fiddle and harmonica with the punk elements.