Sleaford Mods: UK Grim – An excoriation of England and a celebration of its underclass

The 12th studio album from Sleaford Mods distils its vision through its title and opening song, in which Jason Williamson lets us know, amid Andrew Fearn’s ominous beats, that “in England nobody can hear you scream”. For Sleaford Mods, England is now a country not for old men but for no men – or women, for that matter. Williamson’s east midlands sprechgesang continues to discomfit as he takes us through tales of the underclass and the ruthless nature of the society that has led us here.

Fearn’s production has never sounded better or more polished: the drum patterns of DI Why and the driving nature of Tilldipper mirror the softer sonic palette of On the Ground and the stark and sad Don. Florence Shaw, from Dry Cleaning, pops up on Force 10 from Navarone to bring some of her now-trademark deadpan delivery, and Perry Farrell and Dave Navarro, of Jane’s Addiction, add weight to So Trendy.

There is almost an old-fashioned quality to the wonky Right Wing Beast, while Rhythms of Class’s drum machines bring to mind the early 1980s and the Thatcherite England that the Mods remember well, and see as providing the scaffolding for now.

For all their anger, though, this album is as much of a celebration of a seemingly invisible society as it is an excoriation of the prevailing one.