Spare Ribs cover

Spare Ribs

Released

They’ve been this good for five years, but not quite this good. I’m not sure where this is going to land in terms of history, since Jason Williamson has taken himself into a form of rock where he is the only rock and everything around him—Andrew Fearn’s beats—is so resolutely modest that it all sounds like a fold-down of music from some other world entirely. Williamson is singing about the suburbs in a way that reflects the pandemic without naming it. “Mork and Mindy” is the inner monlogue of someone at home, slowly losing his mind. And yet, on stage, the material becomes a football-level holler, pure adrenaline shooting up from a cramped space. A tiny packet of strawberry MSG with a manifesto written along the edge.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Recommended by

Suggestions
Juju cover

Juju

Siouxsie & the Banshees
Fire cover

Fire

The Bug
Flu Game cover

Flu Game

AJ Tracey
Eton Alive cover

Eton Alive

Sleaford Mods
For the first time cover

For the first time

Black Country, New Road
Unity cover

Unity

The KVB
Odyshape cover

Odyshape

The Raincoats
Coriky cover

Coriky

Coriky
Conduit cover

Conduit

Coby Sey
Entertainment! cover

Entertainment!

Gang of Four