The caustic wit of Nottingham’s Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn return with a 13th LP of brilliantly abrasive, dark humoured hip-hop and catchy beats, addressing the rubbish state of the world, as well as local, personal and social irritations through slick nostalgic cultural reference, some expanded sounds, and an eclectic set of guests. These include Kiwi singer-songwriter Aldous Harding, post-punk Midlands duo Big Special, and Game of Thrones actor Gwendoline Christie, the latter two involved on the ironic, hauntingly oddball, catchy angry opener The Good Life (echoing the name after the cosy 70s British sitcom), with a self-parody about Williamson slagging other bands off and as he puts it “debating that internal tension between me enjoying a good life or submitting to the mayhem.” As ever his spitting delivery throughout the album is rich in reference to old products and advertising slogans, everyday conversational phrases and mixes his own bile with taking on a character portrayal. On this opener Christie in particular unleashes an impressively explosive and expletive-filled piece of rage in a video directed by British horror maestro Ben Wheatley, whose brilliantly chilling film is also referenced on the track Kill List.
Former Life Without Buildings frontwoman Sue Tompkins also adds a refreshing turn on No Touch, a number about addiction, but also with an amusingly argument about self “You’re not miserable, you’re nice,” she says. “I’m not!” he protests. Elitest G.O.A.T. in which Harding brings an otherworldly ghostly chorus, critiques souvenir shop activism. Gina Was meanwhile addresses a traumatic episode in childhood about being jumped by a bunch of girls and ridiculed about penis size after having had his trousers removed.
But the thrust of the album, with some added instruments and sounds in part inspired to several tracks having been recorded in the spacious surroundings of Abbey Road studios no less, is about addressing the absolute shocking state everything in this old gallows humour prism, from twisting the theme of classic 70s children’s TV programme The Magic Roundabout on the title track, the catchy and punchy loudmouthed dogmatism on Megaton with a video at Hyde Park’s Speakers’ Corner, further non-stop gunfire of play-on-words targets including the toxic masculinity of Andrew Tate on Bad Santa (“I've been trying to work on my hate, mate / Nothing modern about A Tate, mate”), and of course the nightmare of Trump and America in Flood The Zone featuring Liam Bailey, (“MAGA’s off their tits … MAGA's on the beer and it's made a phone call/ Henry VIII in the Oval, It's gonna cause a ripple, so shoot it up the nasal, a Cadbury's bar in the Oval”, in which Williamson characteristically still manages to reference familiar classic confectionary at the same time as making political broadsides.
But for all the socio-political commentary, while the final track The Unwrap, opens with the line: “Swap these bad boys out”, it doesn’t refer to getting rid of bad leaders, instead acknowledges how powerless most of us are, as, pre-occupied with buying items online such as trainers, we then simply look to sell them on. A sharply acerbic and entertaining as ever, the world may be going to shit, but it is still far better with Sleaford Mods at large to endlessly poke fun and frustration at it. Out on Rough Trade Records. Tour details here.
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