Thought the "me decade" was over? Think again. It's never really ended, at least not according to the Mekons. With the release of their new album, Me, the band has added another chapter to its still burgeoning manifesto.

"It's about the perception of self," Jon Langford, vocalist and guitarist for the band, explains. "It's political, with a small 'p'. We were trying to deal with sex, death, birth -- everything. It's not like a Seventies concept album, but it's about trying to think about the major things that happen in your life and when are you really *you*: When are you yourself?"

Touching upon such topics as advertising, pornography, the music industry and, of course, politics, Langford sounds every bit the social revolutionary that a twenty-year veteran of punk rock should. Indeed, a sense of self-awareness and cultural criticism have always been part of the Mekons legacy. Formed in Leeds in 1977 by Langford and Tom Greenhalgh, the band has never shied from speaking its mind. But the issues addressed on the Mekons' latest are far from self-righteous anthems. One of the many things the Mekons haven't lost over the years has been their sense of humor.

"It's quite cheeky," Langford says. "A lot of the songs are quite viciously attacking the idea that it's very easy to express yourself. In the system that we live in it's actually quite difficult and complicated. The notion of the self that is so important to rock music and Western society is more difficult than people perceive it. There's a myth of self expression that permeates through rock culture, which we don't think is necessarily realistic."

Of course, Langford doesn't see rock as standing alone among the machinery of soul-robbing conformity. It's followed the same path of corporate homogenization and dumbing-down that has plagued advertising, politics -- and even pornography. And while a thoroughly academic investigation might illuminate the link between adverts, pop culture detritus and the lost sense of identity, the Mekons actually came across their evidence the old-fashioned way.

"We bought a lot of Seventies pornography from a thrift store and Sally [Timms, vocals] brought it to the studio when we working on the album. We were saying, 'Wow this pornography is really different than pornography today -- this pornography is really funny, and kind of cheeky and naughty and fairly inoffensive. If you do a little of history of pornography and then lay that against advertising and rock music they all seem to have gone down the same road, which is kind of scary."

And the mileposts for that road would be?

"I think people used to have more pubic hair. And now people believe they don't have so much pubic hair, you know. It's like you're air brushing your life out," Langford continues. "I think that's one of the things that we tried to talk about. We air brush everything.

"Pornography and advertising are selling people images of themselves that they don't need, don't have, and can't rightfully expect. Their politics is the same thing. When you look at the similarities between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, it's style above content: Airbrushed politics. No pubic hair. Except Clinton's letting that side down a bit there."

Langford's and the band's take on this airbrushed culture is probably best stated by Me's opening track, "Enter the Lists." A rollicking litany of products -- "Molding mud, Sun-In, Tampax, Dex-a-trim, Slim Fast, Listerine" -- the fiddle-led ditty addresses that God-given right of the capitalist society: shopping.

"The idea of that song was, Who are you? Am I what's in my handbag? Some days I feel like I am what I shop. Sometimes I really feel like 'My god, I've gotta go shopping.' I feel better when I've shopped, and I'm a pretty sane, critical human being. But sometimes when I go by a shop, I just wanna buy something, I want to be involved in that process."

It's a culture-bred response mechanism that Langford thinks exploits individuals at the cost of their sense of self. "It's a very competitive and nasty world, it's amazing that it's gone on so long, this idea of brand names and logos. I thought that was just a little fad that would pass, it would dawn on people that poor people walking around wearing adverts for huge corporations was deeply ironic. But it hasn't passed, it's the norm now. I hope a generation will come along and say this is fucking crazy. You walk around Chicago and you see poor people dressed in the uniforms of their oppressors, it's the kidnapped adopting the language of the kidnapper."

Surprisingly, none of this information is conveyed through the heavy-handed musical vehicles one might expect. The material on Me is signature Mekons -- a mixture of dub and pub, drum loops and ancient Arabic instruments, synthesizers and strings all arranged in engaging melodies that are instantly accessible. Oddly enough, next to the band's political take, their approach to their craft has drawn the most criticism.

"People are very conservative in what you're supposed to do, we've always been about 'you can do anything' -- that was what punk rock was about. Once you're in a box you should try to get out of that box. We've never been particularly purist about what we do." But Langford does lay part of the blame on the media. "I think there's a real attitude, especially with people who write about rock music. There's a deeply conservative streak to it. It's baffling, but the main criticism is that we're too interesting."

In the face of the criticism, a number of things have kept the band together over the years, the least of which has been, "The idea that we're not supposed to [still be together.]" Langford laughs at the notion. "I felt very strongly in Britain that you're meant to stop doing music when you're thirty, and that's for me when it got really interesting."

It's a level of maturity that could only come from a band whose philosophy has been brewing for so many years. As usual, the Mekons take a long hard look at themselves first, realizing that it all comes back to Me.

"I find pop groups making big political statements in their music [to be making] prescriptive statements, rather than descriptive statements. I find that really offensive, because unless you observe your own position in the scheme of things, it doesn't make much sense."

The Mekons will be bringing Me to the masses during June and July of this year.

STEVE GDULA