Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63552 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 1985-01-01
• Running time: 0 seconds

Customer Reviews

I was up late the other night...
One of the great records of its era or any era.
The 2 star review above can only be a product of that reviewers genre bias. That reviewers recommends the mekons' more straight-forward rock efforts. Fear and Whiskey is not such... What it is is tremendously fun and painful at the same time.
Think Hank Williams at 6 AM after too much whiskey filtered through punk aesthetic.
The mekons have many amazing records in a number of genres. Rock and Roll is a great album in, well I bet you can guess that one, and So good it hurts is a wonderful slanted synth album, but Fear and Whiskey and its partner The Edge of the World are beyond genre and beyond tremendous.

Brilliant...one of the best albums ever...
I can't say enough about this album; Fear and Whiskey embodies every thing that is great about underground music: fierce, inventive, catchy, political, sloppy, passionate, thoughtful, idiosyncratic, cross-cutting... IMO, the Mekons' finest moment in a long and great career (although "Edge of the World," "Rock & Roll," and "Journey to the End of the Night" are all superb albums and worthy of any self-respecting music collection). While F&W is often compared to the music of the recent fad of alt-country groups, there is a big and important difference. The Mekons started out as punks and much of F&W sounds like old school country as drunkenly reinterpreted by a group of people who remain punks at heart (I think the same can be said of some of the early Meat Puppets' stuff, which holds a similar appeal for me). In contrast, the so-called No Depression stuff sounds like the music of a bunch of country lads that own a Minutemen album or two. The Mekons transcend the country and western genre on F&W, fusing it brilliantly with punk, folk, and new wave. Yes, a lot of F&W is country, but, at the same time, it is still very punk (which can't be said for most of the Mekons' later albums). In addition, the songwriting is superb. For example, "Chivalry" opens with the classic line: "I was out late the other night, Fear and Whiskey kept me going...", while "Hard to be Human" offers: "Looking for existence in my red, red wine..." Plus, you could not ask for a better or more poignant/melancholic pair of album closers: "Last Dance" and "Lost Highway." Beautiful stuff. My only complaint is the one offered by others: why not re-release "Original Sin," with the extra 9 tracks, including the amazing "Slightly South of the Border" EP?!?! The world needs the Mekons' cover of Gram Parsons' "$1,000 Wedding!"

Finally back
It's excellent to see Fear & Whiskey finally available again. Like the Amazon review says, this is a timeless album. "Last Dance" is one of the best Mekons songs ever. BUT, why didn't they just re-release "Original Sin" with the extra tracks..