MLEKO – Denouement
After Gub Rock (W42) and the seven-minute sprawl of Tom’s Tune (W07), Manchester’s MLEKO are opening their debut EP The Feast of St. Perpetua with “Denouement”. Out May 1st on Heist or Hit, the EP was recorded at Low Four Studios with Samuel William Jones, who has worked with Maruja and Robin Richards.
“Denouement” is the EP opener and it sets the temperature immediately. Sax and trumpet cut through dense guitar arrangements, the rhythm section hits hard, and Ed Whirledge’s vocal moves between control and the kind of intensity that sounds like it costs something. The lyrics are pointed: the ruling class, blood money, the slow bleed of a system that runs on other people’s labour. Whirledge delivers the central image, the children all weeping for their denouement, with the measured calm the band used on “Gub Rock” before things turned heavy. The Gub Rock formula, if it can be called that, holds: build the tension, commit when it breaks.
Where “Tom’s Tune” gave MLEKO seven minutes to map their range, “Denouement” is tighter and more direct. The political fury is still there but compressed into something that hits faster. And the brass, not just decorating the track but actually driving it, pushing against the guitars in a way that feels confrontational rather than textural. Three singles in, they haven’t repeated themselves yet. With the full EP a few weeks out, that’s the most interesting thing about them right now.
