Sometimes, in times of complacency, what we really need is a band to rock up and tell everyone to fuck off. Introducing Jason Williamson: chippy-looking geezer of a certain age, used to play in mod bands, got nowhere. Then one day he found himself in a studio ranting over a beat by Andrew Fearn, and Sleaford Mods were born. The formula is simple: Fearn drops the beat, a rickety stomp of drum machine and lurking bass guitar. Then Williamson steps to the mic and words pour out like slurry from a pipe – a gush of swearwords, jokes, Nottingham slang, more swearwords. Like a politicised Mike Skinner or John Cooper Clarke up for a scrap, he’s both angry and funny, imagining “the Prime Minister’s face hanging in the clouds/Like Gary Oldman’s Dracula” on ‘Liveable Shit’ and bellowing “The wonderwall fell down on you!” on ‘A Little Ditty’. Escapism’s one thing, but we need artists to sneer at the stars and sing songs about the gutter, and right now no-one does it like Sleaford Mods.
Louis Pattison