{"id":229653,"date":"2025-10-21T15:42:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229653\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T15:42:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T15:42:11","slug":"theres-nothing-wrong-with-critique-but-i-took-it-to-an-extreme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/229653\/","title":{"rendered":"There\u2019s nothing wrong with critique, but I took it to an extreme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sleaford Mods<\/a> have announced their new album \u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019 with the cathartic new single \u2018The Good Life\u2019. Check it out below along with our exclusive interview with frontman Jason Williamson.<\/p>\n

Arriving at the top of 2026 on Friday January 16, the noise duo\u2019s eighth album sees guest turns from Life Without Buildings<\/a> frontwoman Sue Tompkins, Aldous Harding<\/a>, and collaborations from fellow Nottingham artists, soul singer Liam Bailey and grime MC Snowy.<\/p>\n

Teased by the recent rallying single \u2018Megaton<\/a>\u2018, the follow-up to 2023\u2019s aggressive but colourful \u2018UK Grim<\/a>\u2018 could be the band\u2019s most open, diverse and ambitious work to date. Inspecting \u201ca life lived under immense uncertainty, shaped by mass trauma\u201d, the next taster of the record is \u2018The Good Life\u2019. With guest vocals from Star Wars<\/a> and Game Of Thrones<\/a> star Gwendoline Christie and Birmingham soul-punks Big Special<\/a>, and accompanied with a video by High-Rise<\/a> and Kill List director Ben Wheatley.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not punching down, lads, I\u2019m gonna style it out, I\u2019m gonna make out I\u2019m not doing it but in reality I am,\u201d offers Williamson\u2019s opening lines over another infectious Andrew Fearn beat, looking back over his headline-grabbing past of various wars of words with the likes of IDLES, <\/a>Noel Gallagher<\/a>, Alex Turner<\/a>\u00a0and many more \u2013 something the frontman told us that he\u2019s learned to put to bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was going for this idea of slagging bands off,\u201d William told NME of the song\u2019s inspiration. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing wrong with critique, but I took it to an extreme. It\u2019s like, \u2018Why am I doing that?\u2019 You\u2019re doing it, and then you\u2019re ripping yourself up inside. It trails back to experiences as a child predominantly, and not being seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I started to uncover this in going for therapy, I realised it was a thing. I\u2019d denied it for a long time and it was just stupid. What I tried to do with this song was just start by not being able to control myself and say, \u2018You\u2019re shit, you\u2019re just copying me\u2019. The idea with Gwendoline was to bring her in and for her to be my inner voice. Along the same lines, the Big Special are coming in with a chorus that says, \u2018I\u2019m happy, the good life is where I should be and I don\u2019t feel guilty about that\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Williamson continued: \u201cWhile at the same time, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ll ever stop doing it because I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything wrong with healthy critique, the self-obsessiveness thing and not being seen is not about them \u2013 it\u2019s about me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019 came from an era of Williamson reflecting on his past behaviours and mental health to find a more peaceful place to be.\u00a0\u201cMore importantly, it has harmonised my immediate surroundings: my family, the way I have a relationship with my children and my wife,\u201d he explained. \u201cThat to me was the most important thing because I grew up with not that at all. I wanted to break the cycle with my family and I\u2019ve managed to do that. That\u2019s first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, the 55-year-old frontman and actor said he was better equipped to \u201cregulate your own speed in the way that you react to things externally\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a lot of problems with people critiquing me, and that was ongoing,\u201d he admitted. \u201cIt got to a point where I was like, \u2018Why am I bothered about people critiquing me so much?\u2019 I spent a lot of time in therapy talking about that amongst other things.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took me a good five or six years to talk about everything and move on to. I found it very interesting. You\u2019re just peeling back the layers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SleafordSleaford Mods. CREDIT: Press<\/p>\n

Still, despite Williamson\u2019s self-reckoning and Fearn\u2019s more colourful palette of sound, \u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019 is still an album driven by anger \u2013 how could it not be in this era of Trumpian post-truth and doom-scrolling \u2013 but perhaps a more nuanced kind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how people translate my lyrics,\u201d offered Williamson. \u201cPeople talk about society being desensitised to horrors, to anything that we see on the news. I\u2019m kind of desensitised to my own lyrics. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s angrier or less angry. I\u2019m a little bit more subtle these days \u2013 I won\u2019t mention names because I don\u2019t feel I have to. I don\u2019t want these people to have five minutes on my behalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is angry, but at the same time it\u2019s quite introspective. I think the last two records have been like that [\u2018Spare Ribs<\/a>\u2018 and \u2018UK Grim\u2019]. In some respects, it\u2019s a continuation of that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

As comedian Stewart Lee once put it<\/a>, what Sleaford Mods offer is a unique brand of \u201cpowerless rage\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have to get myself into the mind-frame of it before a gig. I just go on stage,\u201d added the frontman. \u201cI just let it build. I think it\u2019s hatred, I think I\u2019m still dealing with not being seen, with envy, with jealousy. I\u2019m not as bad as I was, but it only comes out if I feel it. I\u2019m not going to put it on and make it theatrical. There are theatrics to a performance of course, but emotionally and the way that you feel is just a dead cert. It\u2019s organic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Check out the rest of our interview with Williamson below, where he tells us about collaborators, new sounds, working at Abbey Road, and writing about the world gradually crawling to its end.<\/p>\n

NME: Hello Jason. When we discuss each new Sleaford Mods album it seems hard to believe that the world can get any worse \u2013 but here we are!\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jason Williamson:\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s definitely got worse. You\u2019re either freaked out by it or you\u2019re just living with it. A lot of people are freaked out by it even though they don\u2019t think they are. I wanted to try and capture that on the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been freaking you out?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just recent events: October 7, then the genocide, this new wave of nationalism in this country, the fact that we haven\u2019t dealt with COVID, the response from people around me to these things and what I see online. All of these things go into a pot. The rot that is social media is ongoing, along with your own problems, introspections and traumas. It\u2019s always ongoing. It doesn\u2019t seem to shift. There\u2019s always something to look at.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you view social media now that you don\u2019t engage with it as much?<\/p>\n

\u201cThose on the left are just arguing with themselves. Those on the right are ironically the ones that are managing to achieve some kind of progression in their cause.\u00a0It\u2019s not so much of a weird one anymore, it\u2019s just that it\u2019s looking you in the face: do you want to join the noise or whether you want to stand alone. A lot of the people who aren\u2019t joining the noise are often seen as outsiders or people who have got it wrong, but sometimes they\u2019re just taking it all in and thinking for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is it better to take your time rather than rush to an opinion?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are expected to express, you are expected to release statements, you are expected to do the right thing. There\u2019s almost a fascism attached to that and I find it really interesting. I understand that people want to help, that people feel and are empathetic and compassionate towards other people that are going through horror. At the same time, it\u2019s a double-edged sword \u2013 it can then turn into something that is completely ineffective.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TheThe artwork for Sleaford Mods\u2019 \u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019. Credit: Press<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve said that the backdrop of this album is a grim midlands club you went to in the \u201900s. Would that be a Nottingham club?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it was a club in Grantham [Lincolnshire] actually. Is it also my reaction to being exposed to uncut working class culture again? In Grantham, where I\u2019m from, that is what it is. All the people I know are like that. I come from a working class environment. I moved away to London then to Nottingham, I was mixing with people from all kinds of classes. Is this my indifference with that as well?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019ve found so intriguing about it was that it was completely hopeless \u2013 it was dark, it was grim. I really got a lot of inspiration from that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Did that club mood lend itself to the lighter corners to the sound on this album?<\/p>\n

\u201cInitially, what made this flourish a lot more was that Andrew stopped engineering quite so much and started producing with myself. \u2018We\u2019re going into other studios and we\u2019re paying someone to co-engineer anyway. Let them do that and me and you will just produce\u2019. As soon as he did that, it completely opened up. I would send him really crude ideas on acoustic guitar on a voice note and say, \u2018This is what I want\u2019 then I would send him various vocal melodies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt always works best when I let him just please himself, and he comes up with something really interesting all the time. He was coming up with these almost ska-y type ideas \u2013 especially \u2018Elitist G.O.A.T\u2019 and \u2018Flood The Zone\u2019. For \u2018Bad Santa\u2019, it was this more kind of weird, I don\u2019t know what it was. I let him get on with that and that\u2019s just what transformed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond ska, what was inspiring you while putting this together?<\/p>\n

\u201cI got myself into Bowie<\/a>\u2019s approach to music on \u2018Station To Station\u2019 and \u2018Low\u2019 \u2013 not so much vibing off the songs, but more figuring out how he did it and what drove him to it. It\u2019s about putting yourself in that position as well and trying to be a bit more free with everything. \u2018Scary Monsters\u2019 as well. The sounds are great and some of his lyrics are terrible, but it all works. He\u2019s got these layers of backing vocals and a lot of doo-woop stuff and Motown melodies that you don\u2019t quite catch.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife is a big fan of Barry White<\/a> and I was just honing in on those bass lines \u2013 particularly for \u2018Elitist G.O.A.T\u2019. I nicked a bass line for that. Bowie\u2019s\u00a0vocal is so cutting \u2013 it goes from high to low and this to that. At the same time I was listening to a lot of Danzig<\/a> and starting to get back into rock stuff, which I\u2019m kind of obsessed with at the minute. I wasn\u2019t listening to too much hip-hop, if any really. If you hear a good beat, you just start rapping.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

As well as your usual spot of JT Soar in Nottingham, you spent time recording at Abbey Road. How does being in a legendary space like that help shape things?<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a canteen from midday to 2pm, which reminded me of my days working in a knitwear factory! There was something really traditional about it. To a certain degree it was like any other studio because you\u2019ve got to work, but at the same time there was something very, very magical about it. Obviously The Beatles<\/a> made it that in some respects, but it\u2019s a beautiful space.\u201d<\/p>\n

You also worked at Invada in Bristol, the studio belonging to Geoff Barrow [Portishead<\/a>, BEAK><\/a>]. Were you fishing for any of that magic intensity?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThey don\u2019t allow you to! Geoff\u2019s certainly not one for wearing his medals. He\u2019s got no time for it. They just get on with it down there. They\u2019re almost working with what they\u2019ve got. It\u2019s a fully-established studio and you still get the impression that they\u2019re working with very limited materials. They don\u2019t quite know what they\u2019re doing, but they do. I think it was Andrew Weatherall<\/a> who said, \u2018I\u2019m on the fine line between complete amateur and fair-to-middling musician. That\u2019s how they see themselves a lot of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about the guests on the album \u2013 starting with Gwendoline Christie\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cShe followed us on Instagram, which obviously we couldn\u2019t believe so obviously we followed her straight back. She\u2019s just a singular, powerful figure. Her acting is brilliant, but what she does with fashion and the passion she\u2019s got for that is amazing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe asked her to be in a video and she said, \u2018That\u2019s too fucking far away\u2019, so we said, \u2018OK, do you want to come in on a song?\u2019 and she went \u2018Yes!\u2019 I wrote a part for her while I was on holiday in Paris with the kids. She came in and she did it all in one take, before she held court for two hours. She\u2019s got such a magnetic personality. It\u2019s like being in the company of a true screen star. I don\u2019t know whether she\u2019ll hate me for that, but these words aren\u2019t good enough. She\u2019s a beautiful person. I don\u2019t want to sound wanky when I say that, but it\u2019s true. She\u2019ll just text you and it\u2019ll just be full of such positivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what made you want to work with Big Special?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJoe and Cal came on tour with us in 2023, just before they released their debut album [\u2018Post Industrial Hometown Blues<\/a>\u2018]. They sent me a copy of it and I just loved the \u2018Black Dog\/White Horse\u2019 single. Andrew sent me the loop for \u2018The Good Life\u2019 in Australia at the end of 2022, I wrote something immediately, and after a while I realised I couldn\u2019t cut the chorus. This is where guests come in. If I can\u2019t do something, I\u2019m going to find someone that can.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just popped the question to them and they recorded it with us around the beginning of 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SleafordSleaford Mods\u2019 Jason Williamson. Credit: Press\/Supplied<\/p>\n

You\u2019re quite close friends with Aldous Harding, right?<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, she\u2019s lovely. I\u2019ve known her for five years and I consider her a very good friend. I\u2019m a massive fan of her music so it was just about finding the right idea for her. As soon as we did this song at Abbey Road, again I couldn\u2019t cut the chorus. I realised she was the one. Luckily she was in Bristol recording her album so we just got together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting a rare appearance from Sue Tompkins of Life Without Buildings on \u2018No Touch\u2019 is quite the curveball\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s absolutely fantastic. I wasn\u2019t aware of Life Without Buildings or Sue before the sessions. We\u2019d been liaising a lot with Rough Trade on this album because of their wealth of knowledge. We had a meeting about it and they were like, \u2018Have you heard of Sue Tompkins?\u2019 I hadn\u2019t, so they sent me their album and her voice was just beautiful. We had a lengthy phone call, she came to Bristol and she did it in about three hours. She had a cold as well, which kind of adds to it. You know it\u2019s her, but it reminded me of \u2018Debut\u2019 era \u00a0Bj\u00f6rk<\/a>. It was quite punky.\u201d<\/p>\n

And you\u2019ve two hometown Nottingham stars with Liam Bailey and Snowy?<\/p>\n

\u201cLiam has always been on our radar \u2013 his last album [\u2018Zero Grace\u2019] was a masterpiece in my honest opinion. I just wanted him littered about on the song. I\u2019d been listening to a lot of The Specials<\/a> and The Selector<\/a>. Because Andrew was doing this ska-y thing with it and I just got bang into \u201880s ska. Liam came down to Invada and he did it, bang.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSnowy is certainly one of the highlights of the Nottingham scene. He\u2019s completely obsessed with grime. We had the beat for \u2018Kill List\u2019 and thought he\u2019d sound good on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some critics often don\u2019t appreciate what Andrew Fearn is really capable of and what he contributes. Do you think this could be the album that changes that?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they are already. There\u2019s a lot of jealousy, naivety and ignorance. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a given that believe he does fuck all, because he just doesn\u2019t. We\u2019re not interesting in playing instruments. Although I\u2019m listening to a lot more music where people are these days and I see the beauty in it, but the main reason that we gelled before was this complete dissatisfaction at four and five piece bands, because we\u2019ve been in so many and it seemed like a drag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll see. The unfortunate thing with Sleaford Mods is that those people with those attitudes just refuse to think anything else!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sleaford Mods release \u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019 via Rough Trade on January 16, 2026. Pre-order it here<\/a> and check out the tracklist below.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Good Life\u2019 feat. Gwendoline Christie + Big Special
\u2018Double Diamond\u2019\u00a0
\u2018Elitest G.O.A.T.\u2019 feat. Aldous Harding
\u2018Megaton\u2019\u00a0
\u2018No Touch\u2019 feat. Sue Tompkins
\u2018Bad Santa\u2019
\u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019
\u2018Don Draper\u2019\u00a0
\u2018Gina Was\u2019\u00a0
\u2018Shoving The Images\u2019\u00a0
\u2018Flood The Zone\u2019 feat. Liam Bailey
\u2018Kill List\u2019 feat. Snowy
\u2018The Unwrap\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The duo will be hitting the road for a UK and Ireland headline tour in 2026. See full dates below with tickets available here<\/a>. The band are donating \u00a31\/\u20ac1 from every ticket sold to War Child<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sleaford Mods\u2019 2026 UK and Ireland tour dates are:<\/p>\n

FEBRUARY
6 \u2013 Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow
7 \u2013 Academy, Manchester
12 \u2013 O2 Academy, Leeds
13 \u2013 O2 Academy, Liverpool
14 \u2013 Great Hall, Cardiff\u00a0
19 \u2013 3Olympia, Dublin
20 \u2013 Limelight, Belfast\u00a0
21 \u2013 Cyprus Avenue, Cork
26 \u2013 O2 Academy, Oxford
27 \u2013 Rock City, Nottingham\u00a0<\/p>\n

MARCH
5 \u2013 Bristol Beacon, Bristol\u00a0
6 \u2013 Brighton Dome, Brighton
7 \u2013 O2 Academy Brixton, London\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sleaford Mods have announced their new album \u2018The Demise Of Planet X\u2019 with the cathartic new single \u2018The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,1645,93377,341],"class_list":{"0":"post-229653","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-indie","12":"tag-lets-talk-mental-health","13":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}