Pitchfork

The difference between "quality" and "nostalgia value" is as simple as checking whether a song still speaks to you ten years after you discovered it. That should be simple, but it can be hard to cut through the baggage that comes whenever a familiar artist wanders back in time: When someone digs up their old material, it's assumed to be more of a sentimental gesture than a substantial one-- unless they've got an even thinner gimmick in mind.

So it's hard not to get mired in expectations when you learn that the Mekons recorded Punk Rock after their 25th anniversary tour, and that it captures fifteen songs that they wrote at the band's birth (1977-81), but recorded-- some for the first time-- in the last couple years. It's a relief when the Mekons ditch all ceremony and basically treat this as a lark; they aren't trying to get "loud and sloppy" again, they don't expect reverence when they cue up "Never Was in a Riot", and the mishmash of approaches to this stuff-- from studio to live recordings, mbira-colored ballads to raw shouting-- suggests nothing but a genuine curiosity for what kind of use they can beat out of these songs.

And these are fifteen of the most lumpen bashed-in songs the band ever wrote, hard knobby droppings that stomp and gnash in fast bursts. Even the scope is stunted: The "can't get ahead" frustration of songs like "32 Weeks" reminds us that this band raged harder at the landlord than the Queen, and the live takes on "Dan Dare" and "Fight the Cuts" are pounded down like a poor man trying to squeeze coal into diamonds.

As for the slower tracks, "Work All Week" drops the angry stride of the Quality of Mercy is Not Strnen original, though its poignancy comes less from the lyrics than the weary way Jon Langford sings 'em: "I'll work all week to buy a ring/ Extra hours to get real gold." "Rosanne" is even more cutting: "If you have other men I will like them/ If they take you, come, I'll forgive you/ But if they take you away I will cry." And although they didn't have any zombie songs to dig up for Sally Timms, she gets the next best thing: the axe murder story "Chopper Squad", where the words run out quickly but the banjo gets to wander into dissonance.

But even as Punk Rock shows that The Mekons have far better musicians today than when they were first fumbling around with Gang of Four's instruments, it also proves they're better songwriters. The songs still have something to say, but now they sound like the musings of someone who never got out of his first basement apartment. The Mekons are one of those rare bands that never stopped sounding "punk," that never got slow, boring or sane: They just broadened their horizons. And based on this evidence, it's a good thing they did.