“War Economy,” from Mekons’ 2025 album Horror, is a quintessential post-punk jam with a funky pogo beat, urgent guitars and snarling vocals that rip through lyrics as relevant to the Thatcher/Reagan era as they are to today. When Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu) reconfigured the song for the newly released companion album Horroble (Mekons vs. Tony Maimone In Dub Conference) he teased out an even more ominous quality, with vocals echoing as if the past and present were joined in chorus to sing the same song. In a way, that’s what “War Economy” is about.
“This excursion into Iran doesn’t make any sense, logically. They can’t even explain it,” Jon Langford says on a video call. It’s the first week of April and the Chicago-based Mekons co-founder is on vacation in Georgia. “Apparently, now we’re fighting to open the Straight of Hormuz, which was open before we started fighting the war.”
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