Mesh have been on the go since the 1990s, they're originally from my home town, my mum knows one of the band members, they've released a ton of albums, their music should be right up my street....
...and yet, I know next to nothing about them and i don't have a single song by them in my music collection.
YouTube thrust their new video Lone Wolf right at the top of their home page and I decided to have listen. Lone Wolf is the second of five tracks on their EP This World; you will also find it on the 25-track deluxe edition of new album The Truth Doesn't Matter, out on 27th March.
Lone Wolf is a decent song, very much in the vein of Depeche Mode's recent retrofuture approach with Memento Mori...and yet, it just doesn't grab me in the same way. Maybe it'll take a few more listens.
What proved to be a major distraction on my first listen was the video itself. There's no mention in the credits, but this is an AI-generated video which lifts Viggo Mortensen's character from 2008 film The Road and repurposes him as a seemingly homeless person, the titular Lone Wolf.
That is, until the final frames, which see him heading towards a cabin in the woods, walking side by side with a white wolf. That's your Happy Days/"jumping the shark" moment, as the scene is reminiscent of those airbrushed T-shirts or posters, the latter often with bas-relief faux velvet, that filled Athena in the 1980s.
I've no idea what Viggo Mortensen thinks of all this, but I quickly shifted to listening to Lone Wolf on their Bandcamp page instead.
If there are any Mesh fans reading this, any recommendations for a good introduction to the band, or a suggested playlist? Preferably without an accompanying AI-generated video!
