As a rapper, Slowthai has plenty of technical ability and charisma but the same can’t be said for his singing. One of his signature moves is to change the pitch of his voice mid-line, a trick that makes for an unmistakable rap delivery but sounds like poor pitch coming from a singer. The result is that many of the songs on Ugly feel almost like karaoke performances. “Falling” aims for Pixies but is sorely missing Black Francis’ impassioned mania (the title track, which features Irish post-punks Fontaines D.C., pulls off this sound more successfully). “Tourniquet” answers a question no one asked: What would a Radiohead ballad sound like with hardcore vocals? “Never Again” weaves a tale about a chance encounter with an ex that ends in tragedy—it’s clearly meant to be the record’s poignant centerpiece. But the song, which features choruses sung by Ethan P. Flynn and verses rapped by Slowthai, feels disjointed and awkward, like an imaginary, shelved collaboration between David Bowie and Mike Skinner.
Ugly’s worst song isn’t even a rock song. On “Fuck It Puppet,” Slowthai contorts his voice into various shapes while rapping over a dry, boom-bap beat. But the song’s conceit—Slowthai engaging in a shouting match with the suicidal voice in his head—brings to mind his least flattering comparison: Eminem. In the years following Slowthai’s debut, SoundCloud rap mutated into “rage rap,” a subgenre that dials up the (almost exclusively) male aggression in a manner that’s clearly indebted to Slim Shady. But that sound is now already past its sell-by date and its principal architects are moving on. It would be perfect timing for an artist as thoughtful as Slowthai to interrogate or at least complicate rap’s infatuation with male anger. Instead, on songs like “Fuck It Puppet,” he just lets the rage flow.
This lack of vision is what makes Ugly so disappointing. Slowthai’s work as a rapper is far more dynamic and vital; there’s no real sense for why these songs needed to be rock songs. On Nothing Great About Britain, Slowthai’s anger—against institutions, injustices, and his own rough upbringing—felt righteous and representational. Here it feels vague and nihilistic (“I’m sick of thinking there’s a reason I’m here/We’re just puppets in a simulation,” he muses on “Ugly”), far less nuanced than the reflective bars on 2021’s TYRON. It’s possible to make heavy music that directs its anger toward worthy targets, tackles introspection with maturity, or doesn’t rely on rage for catharsis at all. Ugly sounds like something far less interesting: the sort of generically angsty guitar music that only a ’90s major label executive could love.
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