Unfashionable survivors of England's safety-pin-and-guitars era, the Mekons have turned contrariness into a career despite 15 years fraught with bad timing, bungled record deals and countless personnel changes. When punk was at its apex, they authored "Never Been in a Riot" in response to the Clash's "White Riot." Long before the Garth Age, the Mekons were drenching their mid-'80s albums in fiddles and twisted honkytonk. Now in this season of AIDS and virtual sex comes I Luv Mekons, a barbedwire valentine all the more poignant for the way it confronts and finally rises above its jadedness. "Look into my eyes/All the lovely things will fall together this time," promises Jon Langford on "Wicked Midnite." As he finishes the line, another voice squeals in delight – or is that terror?

The 3 a.m. voices of the band's three singers – Sally Timms' stiletto-edged alto, Tom Greenhalgh's bravely uncertain tenor, Langford's bleary howl – are framed by damaged guitar riffs, the drone of Susie Honeyman's violin and a thrift-shop array of hip-hop loops, dub rhythms and assaultive polkas. The Mekons have become first-rate melodists, but they're not much for formula. For every conventionally structured tune like "Millionaire," there's one like "Too Personal," in which the wordless, melancholy chorus is heard at the outset and then not again until the "Waterloo Sunset"-like fade.

I Luv Mekons is the work of skeptics who refuse to cave in to cynicism. They see the "narrow snake ... solid and defined" in the grass ("Dear Sausage") and yet plead with a lover to "lead me into temptation" on the album's finale. Like the band itself, the singer in "Point of No Return" has crawled from the wreckage enough times to know the risk of trying again. It's that knowledge that gives I Luv Mekons its resonance.

I Luv Mekons is available from 1/4 Stick Records, P.O. Box 25342, Chicago, IL 60625. (RS 675)

GREG KOT