Sleaford Mods – Key Markets

Jason Williamson: lyrical clusterbomb, full of bon mots – often expletives – and prescient observations deployed at dizzying speed. Check him out on Face To Faces, a caustic dismissal of the “daylight robbery” of modern politics. Or there’s Bronx In A Six, which glowers witheringly at those who “pretend to be proud of [their] own culture,” and responds venomously (“FUCK CULTURE”). It feels like adrenaline injected straight into the heart.

With Andrew Fearn’s spindly grooves providing an abrasively stark backdrop, Sleaford Mods should be punk’s most exhilarating sons; Young Marble Giants reprocessed through The Fall and Public Enemy. But that backdrop is occasionally their downfall. The sparsity of sound pushes focus onto Williamson, meaning the ears sometimes yearn for some additional texture; something to break the tension; to make them as sonically vital as they are lyrically. Maybe that tension’s the whole conceptual point, but it's not unreasonable to want a little more from Key Markets. [Will Fitzpatrick]