Spare Ribs

Spare Ribs is the eleventh studio album by Sleaford Mods, released on 15 January 2021 via Rough Trade Records. Arriving in the thick of lockdown Britain, it captures Jason Williamson and Andrew Fearn at their sharpest, angriest, and most perversely energised, turning national fatigue into something ferocious and strangely life-affirming.

Produced, as ever, by Fearn, Spare Ribs sticks to the duo’s brutalist blueprint: stripped-back electronics, lunging bass, and Williamson’s barked delivery landing somewhere between stand-up rant and street-corner prophecy. Yet there is a sense of expansion here. Guest appearances from Amy Taylor and Billy Nomates add texture without sanding down the edges, their voices folding naturally into the album’s snarling, pandemic-era claustrophobia.

Lyrically, Williamson is as forensic and bilious as ever, dissecting class resentment, political exhaustion, and media absurdity with a combination of fury and dark humour. These are not grand statements or manifestos, but snapshots of a country vibrating with frustration. The beats remain deceptively simple, yet Fearn’s production rewards close listening, shifting and mutating just enough to keep the tension coiled.

Critics widely hailed Spare Ribs as one of the duo’s strongest statements, praising its refusal to aestheticise crisis while still sounding vital and alive. It was later nominated for the Best Album Ivor Novello Award in May 2022, a rare industry nod for a band that thrives on antagonism.

If Spare Ribs does not offer solutions, it does not pretend to. Instead, it documents the noise, the anger, and the absurdity of the moment with brutal clarity. In doing so, Sleaford Mods once again prove that discomfort is not just their territory, it is their fuel.