Black Mekon - One In the Hate. Album review

Well this is a surprise. After the success of their brilliantly retro, and yet somehow very forward thinking '45 consortium' subscription service, each month you get a split 7" with Black Mekon and another band, recent ones have included Table Scraps and Bob Log the Third. They've bucked their own trend and released another whole album. Sometimes you know an album is going to be great just by looking at the track-list. 'One in the hate' features such gems as 'Janey was a klepto', 'Frank died hanging from an electric fence', 'hold on to your hate', and 'I just really wanna be your man'. Whatever fantastic stories 'Janey and Frank have might be a bit hard to make out as Black Mekon's vocals are distorted and scuzzy as everything else on the rest of this 26 minute long album. Black Mekon tap into the same mentality that made rock' n roll exciting in the first place. Nothing here extends beyond 2 and a half minutes and everything demands to be played as loud as humanly possible. That it sounds as if it was recorded on an old Nokia only makes it better. Every track is clearly performed live and put straight on the record. You can hear the buzz of the guitar strings, the smashes and clashes of the drums and the rumble of the bass. 'Roman Wonder' is the blues as it was meant to be played. The slide guitar sounds as if it's barely been tuned, and the other riffs just repeat over and over. Black Mekon take a pause for a few seconds breath on 'Salt Liquor' which only adds to the feeling that this album was finished in one take. 'Hold on to your hate' is so stripped back that it doesn't even have the drums and bass backing it. 'Rats out' is so stripped back it barely has vocals on it. 'Fresh Hell' features the inevitable harmonica, and the sound of the bands instruments falling apart under the stress of being thrashed over the past 20 minutes. If you like the blues pure and authentic then you'll probably hate this album. If you like rock n roll noisy, loud and off the chain then you'll love this to death.

Links:
http://www.blackmekon.com/
http://pnkslm.tictail.com/product/black-mekon-one-in-the-hate-deluxe-package
https://play.google.com/music/m/Bezymwhcu446kkqivowcvp2n634?t=One_in_the_Hate_-_Black_Mekon