For a band that’s spent the last decade narrating Britain’s slow-motion collapse with bile, wit, and cheap beats, Sleaford Mods have never sounded quite this uninhibited. The Demise Of Planet X finds Andrew Fearn and Jason Williamson stretching their famously minimal framework into something broader and more volatile than normal. And that’s why it’s their most ambitious record to date, a soundtrack from a world ending not in flames, but in the grinding tedium of late-capitalist decay.

Where previous albums felt like blunt-force commentaries on stagnation and social rot, The Demise Of Planet X goes panoramic. The record buzzes with vivid sounds and enveloping atmospheres, going beyond stark electronics while keeping the duo’s signature austerity intact. Fearn’s beats stretch further and feel more adventurous, while Williamson’s voice remains the serrated edge, cutting through the noise with lines that are funny, furious, and uncomfortably precise. 

Williamson frames the album as a response to life lived under relentless uncertainty. “When we wrote the last album, it was about stagnation,” he says. “Three years later, that corpse has been split open by war, genocide, and the lingering psychological fallout of Covid.” Social media, once a megaphone, has become something more grotesque, a warped engine shaping collective trauma. The result is a record that feels like it’s been chiseled into concrete: multi-layered, ugly, and tough to ignore.

For the first time in a meaningful way, Sleaford Mods invite a wider cast into their world. Former Life Without Buildings frontwoman Sue Tompkins makes a rare appearance, her presence a jolt of nervous energy. Aldous Harding drifts in with spectral elegance, while Nottingham natives Liam Bailey and grime MC Snowy ground the record in soul. There’s even a surreal cameo from actress Gwendoline Christie, who appears alongside Midlands band Big Special on the single “The Good Life,” a song that underscores the album’s dark humor and feeling of dislocation. Even with its varied guests, The Demise Of Planet X never loses its core identity. Fifteen years in, Sleaford Mods remain masters of saying more with less, playing their role as chroniclers of civilization’s unraveling. The world, Williamson warns, may be going out with a whimper. The Demise Of Planet X does no such thing.