Sleaford Mods blast Boris Johnson at Paradise Rock Club on Saturday, 8 April 2023.

Muzzins make mystical music magic in the opening slot.

Digital Awareness in the house.

Close to a sell out, UK hip hop duo Sleaford Mods drew a good crowd at the storied rock club. Sure, we’re located in New England, but new music like their latest LP UK Grim doesn’t always translate across the Atlantic. But on Saturday night the people came out.

Paradise Rock Club has hosted its share of rock n roll legends since opening in 1977. So says the website: U2, Tom Petty, The Talking Heads, Billy Joel, Joan Jett, The Psychedelic Furs, and The Police. In recent decades, the music calendar has gone the way of pop music in general, incorporating more hip hop and electronic music into its bookings.

The Sleaford Mods/Muzzins bill at the Paradise in many ways sums up the trajectory of pop music since the heyday of rock n roll. We’ve long since graduated from the earnest, yet awkward union of hip hop and rock n roll in the Run DMC/Aerosmith collab “Walk This Way.” With the Sleaford Mods, you have artists that you can honestly call both “post punk” and “hip hop” without batting an eye. Muzzins pull at the same apron strings.

The Paradise has gotten some work done as well. If you let a decade or so pass without a visit and it looked different when you returned, don’t worry. You’re not crazy. Around 2010 the stage was moved 15 feet to the left, among other changes. The net result was more space, higher capacity, and perhaps an improved symmetry in the floorplan. Nice!

With two hulking pillars in the pit, a shallow balcony, and a weird urinal layout in the men’s bathroom, the rock club will never win any architecture awards. But between the music, history, and good vibes staff, it’s got it where it counts.

Muzzins

Boston’s Muzzins warmed up the crowd with a bass-heavy psychedelic seance of a set. The three-piece channeled deep vibrations from the Earth’s core to mix a potion that made ample use of the low end of the venue’s high-fidelity sound system. 

Tom Stepsis’ bass, along with the rest of the rhythm section, is what moves the body – and a Muzzins show always seems to ride the line between a more conventional music performance and more immersive dance party. You could imagine this band gigging at a rotating theater-in-the-round, like the North Shore Music Theatre up in Beverly, and inviting the whole audience to jump on the carousel.

If you caught Muzzins at other gigs around town – say, at Midway Cafe or ONCE/Boynton Yards – you might have noticed a more rock n roll attack. Drummer Chris Antonowich incorporated more electronic beats, less drum kit, into Saturday’s set. The result was a clubbier, more dancehall feel, which dovetailed nicely with the electronic sensibilities underpinning the headlining act.

Shout out to the melodica and keytar. Frontwoman and vocalist Rayna Jhaveri seems to be a connoisseur of obscure instruments. She offered a rousing romp on the keytar during the band’s new single “Send It Back.” And she does most of the heavy lifting in terms of crowd work, inviting the crowd deeper into the Extended Muzzins Cinematic Universe with each song.

Sleaford Mods

The UK hip hop duo Sleaford Mods hails from Nottingham when they’re not touring the world. Saturday at Paradise found the pair in the middle of the promotional push for their new album UK Grim.

No rest for the weary – the latest album is their 12th (?) since forming in 2007. The prolific output is a product of fruitful collaboration between two musical partners that know what they do well. Jason Williamson handles the lyrics and Andrew Fearn handles the beats. Rinse, wash, repeat.

When British music doesn’t translate across the Atlantic, sometimes it’s the sound of it and sometimes it’s the sense of it. Fearn’s beats bang universally, sticky and slippery at the same time, goading the crowd into action. But would Williamson’s lyrical skewering of British austerity politics move American audiences into the same throes of ecstasy and disgust as the British ones?

Judging from the number of Sleaford Mods hats and shirts in the crowd at Paradise, the room was ready for a good political rant regardless of the national origin. And the accent only adds to the allure. Everyone probably went home and watched an episode of Peaky Blinders for good measure.

Hip hop sets can run short, but Sleaford Mods had material for miles. With only two acts on the bill, the headliners gave the fans their money’s worth. You wonder how Williamson’s voice could possibly hold up over a whole tour. His vocal attack is vicious, high-intensity, unrelenting, full of the kind of spit-and-fettle, back alley cursing that most people can sustain for only seconds at a stretch. 

And there was no help in sight, as Fearn stuck to the sampler when he wasn’t playing pure hype man. A tall hot cup of tea with honey is what is wanting at the end of a Sleaford Mods set. Crumpets optional.

Shout out to Digital Awareness! But wearing jackets over the red jumpsuits? Say it ain’t so!

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