The first song on the latest Mekons album is called "Dark Dark Dark," and truth in advertising gets no more direct. The Leeds-originated band, whose membership is spread out around the U.S. and Europe, is at its most subdued and simmering here, with relatively little of the anthemic moxie it's normally so good at. Unfortunately, this means a lot of the songs blur together, even up close. The happy exceptions are the anger-mottled, chantey-like "Burning In The Desert Burning," which sounds monotonous at first, then righteously angry, and "The Hope And The Anchor," sung by the great Sally Timms at the very edge of her wispiest voice, the opposite of her usual soulful croon in style, but not in effect.
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