Sleaford Mods
Scala, London

 
TIRADES against Tories, blocky beats, acerbic bon mots, rants about the state of society and a message that reflects the grim state we’re in, this is what Nottingham’s Sleaford Mods bring to the stage. 

They’re at the Scala in London’s King Cross as part of War Child’s BRITs Week - where major artists play small venues to generate funds and support children living through conflict. To date more than £7 million has been raised. 

Right from the off the band set out their stall playing the title track from their last album UK Grim. The music is driven by Andrew Fearn, who occasionally taps his laptop, but in the main is bouncing around the stage dancing dementedly as electronic beats, loops and odd keyboard riffs ring out. It is a merciless beat that drills into you, but gets the crowd moving.

Over the top of those beats, singer Jason Williamson rants and raves mainly in a spoken vocal style like an angrier Ian Dury, although it takes a few tracks before they really hit their stride and the audience warms up. 

Whether bemoaning the struggle to make ends meet on the track £5.60 — the amount left in the singer’s bank account when he wrote the song — to challenging right-wing conspiracy theorists that are getting increasing air time in Big Pharma there’s a constant cataloguing of and challenge to modern life.

A cover of the Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls goes down well, although doesn’t really add anything new. 

The loudest cheers were left for the last three songs. Tied up in Nottz comes across like an angle grinder as Williamson outlines what makes modern Britain tick, not very much, Jobseeker lays bare the reality of having to find work while set closer Tweet Tweet Tweet is an expletive driven delight about society’s slow death that could fittingly be renamed XXX. 

Overall, the audience could not just see the white of Sleaford Mods’ eyes, but also succumb to the spittle of their vitriol, but it was in concert with rather than directed against them, and most walked away content with their close encounter. 

Donate to War Child: www.warchild.org.uk. Sleaford Mods are on tour. Details: sleafordmods.com.