Key markets

Description

A sensation of 2014 in the UK with the album Divide and Exit, Sleaford Mods managed to export their very particular musical idiom beyond its borders, despite a typically British calling card, built on minimalist spoken-singing laid over heavy rhythms, a razor-sharp accent and a verbal deluge enriched every three words with the unprintable “fookin’”. A duo of bad boys with the look of delinquents, Sleaford Mods practice an engaged sprechgesang. Their music, like their contrarian delivery, leaves no room for compromise, letting only a few basic melodies sung in chorus slip through, as in “No One’s Bothered”. Influenced in no particular order by the Sex Pistols, post-punk with deep basslines (“Silly Me”), The Fall and its uncompromising leader Mark E. Smith, or the techno grenadiers of The Prodigy, the two lads from Nottingham found their footing after several unsuccessful attempts. This eighth album, Key Markets, though a little less varied than its predecessor, nonetheless has some knockout assets and excellent diatribes such as “Cunt Make It Up”, packed with recognizable noises, the already famous “Face To Faces” or “The Blob”. Addictive, Jason Williamson’s flow, heard the same year with The Prodigy (“Ibiza”) and Leftfield (“Head And Shoulders”), and Andrew Fearn’s linear arrangements are far from monotonous. Their concerns, embracing the most painful issues of the moment such as unemployment, faceless finance, religious extremism (“Arabia”), immigration and its damage (“Tarantula Deadly Cargo”), life on the street (“Bronx In A Six” and “In Quiet Streets”), or politics in general, are delivered with rare conviction.