Sleaford Mods - All That Glue (2020)

I must admit to having raised an eyebrow at the release of this, having dutifully snapped up all those obscure singles as they came out, then bought at least a couple of them again when they were reissued on the Chubbed Up + compilation, and now here's the opportunity to buy Jolly Fucker and others a third time along with some unreleased stuff, including the title track, All That Glue - the first thing ever recorded by Fearne and Williamson - but only as a fucking flexidisc issued with the gold vinyl edition.

Bollocks, I said to myself and bought the compact disc in protest, and because my shelves now have space for about another fifteen vinyl albums and not much more before I'll need to schlep down to Lowes and buy a new reinforced shelving unit, possibly also a new room for the house.

Grumbling aside, Glue duplicates only four tracks from Chubbed Up +, but they're four good 'uns, and as something vaguely intended to serve as an introduction to the Sleaford Mods for those who might require one, it's hard to fault. Actually, Glue is hard to fault even if you already have most of the previous albums. Not only does this represent their absolute best, but the sequencing from 2012's McFlurry at the beginning through to closing with When You Come Up To Me from 2018 reveals a progression and even a sophistication you could be forgiven for having missed. It's not all Bontempi loops and Jason yelling the word bollocks even if it may sometimes seem that way. There's a much greater variety of emotion here than I realised even with anger, frustration and sarcasm as the core, and for all its apparent simplicity, even rudimentary composition, the music evokes Joy Division, Suicide - the band rather than the deed - the early Pistols, and all manner of unsung laptop weirdies without actually sounding like anyone else out there; which is to say that even familiar tracks such as Jobseeker or Tarantula Deadly Cargo seem freshly dosed with manic energy as part of this collection, spliced together with tracks which somehow slipped through the cracks, of which Blog Maggot is possibly the greatest.

So I was completely wrong. This is just as essential as the rest, just as vital, and I only wish the awkward buggers had included the track from which the title was derived on the CD, but I suppose they must have had their reasons. Having achieved something resembling fame, and enough so as to summon the threatening stench of a regular restaurant review column in the Guradian like that bloke from Franz Ferdinand, we're now approaching the point at which gentlemen of a certain vintage will inevitably announce either that they only liked the first record, or they never really liked the Sleaford Mods in the first place - contrarian bollocks at least as risible as refusing to listen to anything which fails to tickle the hit parade. All That Glue serves as a timely reminder of what makes this band great and why we listen to their records. Let's not take them for granted.