You could drive yourself mad thinking about what Sleaford Mods “mean”, and why the lyrics of Jason Williamson began to resonate in 2014, after seven albums. The pat response would be to claim that it’s all about austerity Britain, and, yes, Williamson writes about the world of pound shops, of trying to get something for nothing. But plenty of his lyrics are also set in the world of work, rather than the dole queue (“I work my dreams off for two bits of ravioli/ And a warm bottle of Smirnoff/ Under a manager that doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue/ Do you want me to tell you what I think about you, cunt?”). If his writing is setting off bells in people’s heads now, then any connection with the state of Britain might be more to do with the sense of anger entering the public space: Williamson’s lyrics sound less like social commentary than the thoughts that would spill out of us all if only we dared speak them aloud.
Then, watching them perform at the 100 Club in London earlier this year, another thought occurred. Williamson and his musical partner, Andrew Fearn, are nothing so much as some kind of darkworld equivalent of David Brent and Gareth Keenan. Fearn would press a button on his laptop, then stand swigging beer while giving the thumbs-up to people in the audience, grinning while the main event happened a few feet away. Instead of bringing Brent’s constant and often unsuitable cheer, Williamson would bring constant and unsuitable vituperation. Just as Brent would tighten his tie or flick back his hair with his fingertips, so Williamson’s hand would swipe from his waist to the side of his head, and he’d punctuate songs with a strange little circle of his mic stand, a preening inversion of a Mick Jagger strut. It was someone aware, in another inversion of Brent, that rock stars are really a bunch of knobs, that it’s all ridiculous. Once I’d got the Brent and Keenan comparison in my head, it was hard to shake it.
But there’s another comparison: like Brent and Keenan, Williamson and Fearn are funny. Sleaford Mods aren’t a novelty group looking for lols, but Williamson deploys language so pulverisingly, with such insistence, that you can’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity at the flow of words and at the connections that get made: “The smell of piss is so strong it smells like decent bacon/ Kevin’s getting footloose on the overspill/ Underneath the piss station.” And you can’t help but laugh because sometimes the lyrics are meant to make you laugh, in the same way Malcolm Tucker is meant to make you laugh – “You fucking tit-rifle,” from You’re Brave, was the best insult set to music this year offered.
Divide and Exit isn’t the sound of Britain in 2014. It’s the sound of someone’s imagination – but that’s what the best music has always been.
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