Sleaford Mods - The Demise Of Planet X

For a duo who seemed to arrive fully-formed, Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn have managed to wring remarkable reserves of range from a threadbare set-up across a prolific 10 years. Anatomising the nation’s banality-induced slow decline, The Demise Of Planet X treats wretched times as the spur to re-energise creative momentum. Developed across Abbey Road, Invada and Nottingham studios with more guests, tones and raw feelings than ever, the record nudges Sleaford Mods into fresh turf, seeking out surprise sounds for shocking times and hidden depths in Williamson’s agitated fusillades.

Like Fearn bopping behind his laptop, it’s a record constantly on its toes, limber and receptive to the jolts of stimuli external and internal. The Good Life is exemplary, staking out uncharted turf with powerhouse actor Gwendoline Christie’s cameo. As Williamson draws on time spent in therapy to dissect his intemperate rage about inferior bands, West Midlands duo Big Special’s surprisingly warm chorus lulls you into a false sense of serenity - until Christie’s air-blackening rant erupts, heralding a record with more mood swings than a Goose Fair rollercoaster.

If McJob diatribes - a reductive description, but go with it - were once Mods’ metier, The Demise... emphasises more dynamic, wrongfooting flavours. Aldous Harding is a calming presence on Elitest G.O.A.T., a little pop ditty with a soft centre and a sting in the tale. Life Without Buildings’ Sue Tompkins brings an almost distracted quality to No Touch, a druggy confessional slipped inside an innocent­sounding framework.

Wherever you turn, Williamson finds fresh fuel for his ire, be it toxic masculinity from Tate to Trump (Bad Santa), social media’s empty distractions from global atrocities (Megaton), online warriors (Shoving The Images), British insularity (the Shirley Valentine- influenced title track) or far-right strategies (Flood The Zone). If the view gets bleak, nostalgia offers no reprieve: setting an old Williamson lyric to a new Fearn arrangement, Double Diamond issues murky morning-after dispatches from the bottle’s bottom. And Gina Was details a childhood indignity grim enough to send anyone to therapy.

If Williamson is more vulnerable than ever, Fearn is more inventive. The record bristles with details, from No Touch’s vocoder and Megaton’s whomping beat to the Wu-Tang-style wind chimes and tense guitar of Bad Santa. Kill List maxes the dystopian horror vibes, while the title track’s Magic Roundabout- ish delirium and the small-hours screen-glow mood of Shoving The Images find the duo at their most resourcefully evocative.

Humour and scrappy payloads of energy help power the results beyond mere end-times doldrums. The collaborations feel less like starry shoo-ins than gatherings of outsider kindred spirits, whether it’s Midlands rapper Snowy tearing up Kill List or Liam Bailey’s warmly soulful vocals lifting the tense Flood The Zone. And Williamson’s well of free-associative gambits seems incapable of running dry, linking Bon Jovi to Tarka the otter, Domestos to Maga and more. Tweet Tweet Tweet-ish closer The Unwrap, meanwhile, combines an online shopping addict’s confessional with anxieties of creative worth. Are Sleaford Mods, Williamson asks, at risk of curdling in cliché? On this sure, sharp evidence, not even close: enriched and incisive, expansive and introspective, The Demise Of Planet X never settles for second-hand goods.