Austerity Dogs

Product Information

There are points within the album where it does overstay its welcome to the point of exhaustion, mainly on the second half where tracks such as ‘***street’ and ‘Don’t Wanna Disco Or 2’ are much weaker on impact, they seem to trudge along without any real direction.

The society I live is mine" – this record says – "open to my voice and action, or I do not live there at all. Austerity Dogs’ is driven by post-punk basslines that loop consistently with rough cuts of drum clips, with the occasional synth melody to add a bit of texture to the tracks; these are all created by the other half of Sleaford Mods, Andrew Fearn. I also think it's fair to say that this is a highly lyrics-driven album, and that if you don't get those lyrics you will struggle to find anything to like. The perfect antidote to waking up with sludge tongued Stella ache and Russell Bland bleating revolution from every orifice. All image and audio content is used by permission of the copyright holders or their agents, and/or according to fair dealing as per the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.Designer, architect and artist, his iconic work for Yes, Uriah Heep, Budgie, countless Vertigo sleeves and much more, has almost come to define 70's sleeve art. The dirty, homophonic pun of the track title ("Urine Mate") is quickly revealed, before the lyrics turn to even darker fare: pimps beating up women outside the bookies ("What have I ever done to you? Formed 2 years ago out of the ashes of Leeds garage rockers The Bacchae, the band were seduced by the brutal and hypnotic lure of the riff, to emerge translucent skinned and bleary eyed from their cocoon as the ferocious kick-ass heavy rock outfit that is Black Moth.

It will polarise the general public with its minimalistic and curse-riddled lyric content, but that is the purpose of this release, just as Williamson talks about how austerity splits the social classes. I first heard the song "Donkey" around New Year when the album was made "Album of the year" at Norman Records and thought is was crap.The music is quite basic, a drum machine, a bass guitar and a few frills, with Jason Williamson venting his spleen and getting a few things off his chest over the top. Austerity Dogs' is an unhinged, greasy blast of realism gobbing at a dying world staffed by utter tools. In an age where everything seems to have been done before, where so many bands seem happy to tread over old ground, and where as a listener it sometimes feels a bit like you're grateful to just find a band that at least treads over that old ground with new shoes, 'Austerity Dogs' is a kick aimed squarely and with extreme firmness up your musical arse. This lends the record an uncomfortable cubism – a hotchpotch of half-remembered impressions from the night before coming into relief through the hangover's haze: a disorienting miasma of contemporary bullshit. With the DJ in mind, optimum sonic integrity has been maintained by removing the CD version's beatless opening and closing tracks, and the remaining 11 tunes have been re-sequenced and re-cut to allow those 4 that have until now not appeared on vinyl to be presented in newly-mastered 12-inch-standard audio across the first 2 sides ('Wounder', 'U Hurt Me', 'Spaceape' and 'Prayer').

fronting up to the BMX-riding estate kids ("Smash yer face, cunt, back into next week"), the possibility of catching chlamydia from using the "only phone on the road".It should be on the school curriculum, and then maybe all those young kids that watch all that pish on TV (X-Factor) etc might then realise that there is real music out there and not just ear rotting, soul destroying drivel that they are force fed, beg steal of borrow this album and get listening! Indeed, so pitch-perfect are Sleaford Mods in their vitriolic take-down of austerity Britain that part of me worries that's it all just some satirical prank, and that when 'Austerity Dogs' hits the end-of-year best-of lists (as it will) Williamson and Fearn will be found "laughing their tits off" with Mumford and Sons whilst blowing coke up each other's bumholes or something. This will make said orifices bleed and hurt, like wiping them with folded grease proof paper and not being able to flush.