The opening track to Slowthai’s third album ‘UGLY’ is one of the most visceral introductions you’ll hear this year. Amidst various explicit sex acts (including a golden shower) and bolshy electronic beats, the Northampton artist lists everything that’s pumping through his system: “More coke / More weed / More E’s / More trips”. A quickening beat and deep breaths might suggest a hell of a party, but by the song’s end, he’s deep in the hole: “One drinks never enough / Excuse me while I self-destruct”.
‘UGLY’, then, is a warts-and-all reckoning, his most exhilarating project to date from front to back. Following the public fall-out from the NME Awards in 2020, and right-wing criticism of his exuberant stage presence and stunts (which included him holding an effigy of Boris Johnson’s severed head at the Mercury Prize in 2019), Tyron Frampton’s “cartoonish” public persona came at the detriment of his brutal honesty and self-expression: “You’re stereotyped as the nutter who gets in his boxers”, he says in accompanying notes to the record, saying that his intentions have been misinterpreted.
2021’s ‘TYRON’ was similarly soul-baring, a double album split between pulsating hip-hop and subdued ballads. Frampton tackled his issues head-on, namely on ‘CANCELLED’, where he and Skepta asked: “How you gonna cancel me? / Twenty awards on the mantelpiece / Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury”. But there’s always more to the story, and on ‘UGLY’ it feels like you get every gory detail. Lockdowns, therapy and elements of sobriety have allowed Frampton to reflect on every facet of his personality with maturity, keen to show that there’s more to him than what the cynics see.
And no wonder he’s gone back to basics to do that. Inspired by his love of rock bands as a teen, he’s formed something of his own crew to realise a long-held desire for camaraderie: Kwes Darko, Dan Carey, Jockstrap’s Taylor Skye, Shygirl, Fontaines D.C. and more all appear on the album. It proves a return to the Slowthai many fell in love with on his early collaborations with Mura Masa on ‘Doorman’ and ‘Deal Wiv It’; bolshy, intense, loveable and messy.
Lead single ‘Selfish’ best demonstrates Frampton’s new mindset and focus, as he speaks of his recent fatherhood (“I’m thankful for the life that I lead / I kiss my son before I put him to sleep”) and reminding us that success isn’t all it cracks up to be (“I still see it in my friends, the jealousy / They wanna be me / The grass ain’t always green on the other side”). He apes Jamie T on ‘Sooner’, where he reminisces about “riding shotgun in a 306” without a “pot to piss in” – but he’s as content and carefree as he’ll ever be, before the prying eyes try and pin him down.
If there was danger of straying into cheeky-chappy indie clichés, title track ‘UGLY’ tempers that. Recorded with Fontaines D.C., the doomy, claustrophobic rock elevates an inspired vocal performance from Frampton – his best ever. “The world is ugly”, he barks throughout, but amidst the chaos, the startling clarity in the track’s final verse leaves a lasting impression:“The moment the world stands still / You are not in control”. Slowthai has always had an epic song like this in him, but it’s only at this present moment that he can realise it.
The accompanying music video for ‘Feel Good’, a two-minute bouncer featuring Shygirl on backing vocals, is a perfect distillation of the album’s magnificently executed mission. In the clip, they capture fans’ reactions to the new song, unaware that the man himself is creeping into frame, and into their messy bedrooms, studios and lives. In lesser hands, it’s baiting for viral reactions, but here, the fan’s visceral responses – pure, unscripted, joyous – capture ‘UGLY’s juvenile spirit. Forget the noise, and the cameras, just feel and embrace it; life is futile without that commitment to every emotion, as Slowthai can attest to.
Kacey Musgraves has cast a spell across London’s Roundhouse. Dry ice shrouds the Texan artist and her 8-piece band in a hazy mist, the lighting dramatic – at times it evokes the break of dawn, others a thunderous rainstorm. And at the eye of this hurricane is Musgraves, her luminous vocals shining as brightly as the disco ball that’s illuminated during a rousing rendition of ‘Anime Eyes’. With the audience — who obey requests to be in the moment and not just view the gig through a lens — enraptured, the ethereal magic of the live show threads throughout.
Tonight’s gig is part of the ‘Deeper Well World Tour’, the shows accompanying Musgraves’ sixth studio album released earlier this year. It’s a record that saw her “navigating new beginnings”, as she said about its titular track: “Sometimes you reach a crossroads. Winds change direction. What you once felt drawn to doesn’t hold the same allure. You get blown off course but eventually find your footing and forage for new inspiration, new insight and deeper love somewhere else”. Or, as she more succinctly reflects in its chorus: “And I’ve got to take care of myself/I found a deeper well”.
This live setting, with the lush arrangements delivered by Musgraves’ double-denim clad band, is where the songs shine, the resilience and complex emotions they convey shining through. The power of opener ‘Cardinal’ ricochets through the venue accompanied by fleshed out instrumentals, while the lilting ‘The Architect’’s quietly questioning lyrics resonate in their subtle accompaniment.
Tracks that faded into the background on ‘Deeper Well’ at times work better here, too. ‘Jade Green’ is taken from a subdued slow burn into a thundering storm, Musgraves swathed in lights of the titular colour, strobes evoking lightning and crashes of percussion closing out the song, before the chaos subsides into a musical ‘Rainbow’. ‘Lonely Millionaire’, meanwhile, is elevated in this setting, the slinky track coming with mass sing-a-longs.
Yet for all the mysticism and magic when the music is playing, in-between songs Musgraves charms in a very different way. Her breezy wit juxtaposed with gut-wrenching music reminiscent of fellow on-stage entertainers Adele or Lewis Capaldi. As the band gear up for a quieter point in the set and huddle in closer at the front of the stage, Musgraves delights the audience with her tight-5 about the food poisoning and stomach upset she started the tour with, which soon spread around her touring party like wildfire. How did we get onto this story? An audience heckle that sounded a bit like a Spice Girl prompting Musgraves to reveal “I met Sporty the other day and almost shat myself! Speaking of…”
That’s not to say this humour isn’t also evident in Musgraves music — the excellent couplet “If you save yourself for marriage, you’re a bore/You don’t save yourself for marriage, you’re a hor-rible person” is sung with gusto by the crowd, in a stripped back rendition of ‘Follow Your Arrow’ (a cut from Musgraves’ debut studio record ‘Same Trailer Different Park’). And there’s rousing renditions of the jubilant kiss-off ‘High Horse’, and the eye-roll at an insecure ex on ‘Breadwinner’.
As she closes with a cover of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ ‘Three Little Birds’ and a short snippet of ‘Easier Said’, Musgraves tells the audience: “I hope your well has been deepened”. With the spell-binding communal magic of being in the moment and Musgraves’ powerhouse performance, we don’t doubt they have.
Kacey Musgraves played:
‘Cardinal’
‘Moving Out’
‘Deeper Well’
‘Sway’
‘Too Good to Be True’
‘Butterflies’
‘Happy & Sad’
‘Lonely Weekend’
‘Lonely Millionaire’
‘Follow Your Arrow’
‘The Architect’
‘Nothing to Be Scared Of’
‘Heaven Is’
‘Jade Green’
‘Rainbow’
‘Golden Hour’
‘Anime Eyes’
‘Don’t Do Me Good’
‘Justified’
‘Breadwinner’
‘High Horse’
‘Slow Burn’
‘Three Little Birds’ (Bob Marley & The Wailers cover)
‘Easier Said’
