Live music review: Sleaford Mods, Vicar Street, Dublin

Every so often British music spits out a group like Sleaford Mods: outrageous outsiders wearing their left wing anti-establishment beliefs like military epaulettes. In this age of Brexit and austerity, it is no coincidence that their star has ascended with uncommon speed.

Just a few years ago, 45 year-old frontman Jason Williamson was working as a social welfare advisEr in Nottingham. Now’s he’s the 21st Century mix of Paul Weller and Keith from the Prodigy — a pop insurgent delivering polemics in a ferocious snarl.

They brought the full heft of their righteous angst to their largest ever Dublin show. Prowling the stage the swaggering Williamson was a cross between a revival preacher and a pitch invader looking for a fight. He snarled, he swore, he repeatedly slapped his head as he sang. And while the words spewing from his lips seldom made any kind of sense (“V for Wall’s Vendetta, freeze it, you can eat it later”) the political import was clear: the little people have had enough and now they’re fighting back.

The gig was elevated above mere shouty catharsis by the bare-boned beats provided by Williamson’s collaborator Andrew Fearn, who stood behind a laptop and swayed from side to side. Yet for all its stripped-down intensity, the performance was deeply catchy too: ‘Faces To Faces’ surfed on a terrace anthem chant, ‘Tarantula Deadly Cargo’ was a rollicking salvo of anti-pop.

Their banter was just as irreverent. “Can we have some passports?” asked Williamson at one point, a reference to Brexit and the stampede of Britons seeking Irish travel documentation.

Without question Sleaford Mods are an acquired taste. If you appreciate conventionally structured songs, choruses and decipherable lyrics they’re probably not for you.

Anyone who thinks music should stand for something beyond mere entertainment, however, will recognise Williamson and Fearn for the skewed geniuses they are.