Sleaford Mods / KEY MARKETS

MEDIA: Near Mint (NM or M-)
SLEEVE: Near Mint (NM or M-)

The third album from Sleaford Mods and it’s business as usual. It’s an articulate, authentic and exhilarating expression of the state of the nation. The Nottingham duo’s third cracker in three years finds producer Andrew Fearn’s insistent beats and basslines again providing the perfect vehicle for Jason Williamson’s furiously spluttered, sweary rhymes. His scattergun blunderbuss takes fire at anything and everything: his mates’ music taste (“Put the CD on. It’s fucking Shakin’ Stevens!”), Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg, Tory cuts, bad dope, Starbucks, woolly jumpers, Lauren Laverne, Blur (“even the drummer’s a fucking MP”), gangs in leather jackets (“motorbikes from the 50s. You live in Carlton, you twat”) to alienation itself (“no one’s bothered”). Key Markets ain’t pretty – and that’s entirely the point.