FOUL MOUTHED duo channelling the spirit of John Cooper Clark and Mark E Smith, making ‘state of the nation’ addresses, articulating their disgust with the state of modern Britain? This is Sleaford Mods.
Andrew Fearn creates a minimalist hybrid of stripped back hip-hop/electro or punk rhythms with sparse guitar backing or punk styled bass riffs. Over this vocalist Jason Williamson chants street poetry dealing with issues like unemployment, working life, pop culture, and capitalism, in an English east midlands dialect slang.
Williamson had a number of releases under the Sleaford Mods moniker, before joining forces with Fearn in 2012, to create the album Wank. This was followed by Austerity Dogs (2013 ) while this year saw the Divide and Exit album and the EP Tiswas.
The Nottingham duo’s uncompromising music and vision has won enormous critical acclaim. The Auteurs/Black Box Recorder’s Luke Haines said: “Sleaford Mods sound like nothing else...Sleaford Mods are a band who others will try to imitate...Best band in the land. It’s that simple.”
The Guardian described the band as making “the most uncompromising British protest music made in years, Williamson’s blistering critique is all the more searing because of its seeming randomness: his vocal punches can land anywhere from limp copyist guitar bands to Boris Johnson to – more curiously – Kasabian and Brian Eno.”
Sleaford Mods play Strange Brew at the Róisín Dubh on Thursday December 4 at 9pm. Tickets are available at www.roisindubh.net, the Ticket Desk at OMG Zhivago, Shop Street, and The Róisín Dubh.
