Sleaford Mods – All That Glue review

Now that the charts aren’t listened to by anyone who has hair on their body below the waist, it’s perfectly acceptable to issue greatest hits albums which contain no hits; as Bernard Sumner of New Order once said when Blue Monday failed to make the number one spot in 1983, if you believe in them, you might as well believe in fairies.

Sleaford Mods – aka the pugnacious, King-of-the-invective Jason Williamson and his composer extraorindaire Andrew Fearn – have probably sweated, cajoled, abused and affronted enough people over the last seven years to have earned a retrospective, even if true to their nature All That Glue is far from straightforward, made up of new stuff, off cuts, b-sides and live favourites.

They’re really also not a duo which you stumble across by accident, Williamson spitting out lines full of building site language that eviscerate old jobs, new enemies and bad drugs, to which laptop auteur Fearn provides the lowest of fi backing.

After two revelationary albums – 2013’s Austerity Dogs and Divide And Exit, released the following year, the smart money was on the formula revealing itself as a creative dead end. But as All That Glue shows, the pair have wisely expanded their horizons with excursions like OBCT’s gloomy synth pop and the almost R&B of When You Come Up To Me. Old favourites Job Seeker, BHS and Tweet Tweet Tweet are equally potent reminders of how they were angry miserabalists way before it came back in fashion.

You can read the full review here.