Ugly (Slowthai album)

Ugly comes after Slowthai's critically acclaimed 2021 album, Tyron. On 25 January 2023, Slowthai released the song "Selfish", and revealed the album's title that same day. On 7 February 2023, Slowthai released the song "Feel Good". In a statement, Slowthai revealed that he "wanted to emulate the brotherhood ethos that bands have". In an interview with The Fader, Slowthai discussed how this is his most personal album yet and the new direction he has taken sonically. In another interview with Apple Music after the release of the album, he stated the following: "delving into this gave me that freedom again, I felt inspired. I wanted to do something new and challenge myself, rather than just doing what's expected of me." The title track features Irish post-punk band Fontaines D.C., whom Slowthai met at the 2019 Mercury Prize ceremony, performing the instrumental. Jockstrap's Taylor Skye helped produce the song "Tourniquet". == Critical reception ==

Upon release, Ugly was met with widespread acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 80, based on 16 critical reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Lisa Wright of DIY gave the album five stars and commented, "Ugly is a beautiful thing to behold." Helen Brown of The Independent commented, "On Ugly, he uses rock music as an alarm bell to jolt himself back to reality." Thomas Smith of NME opined that the album "is a warts-and-all reckoning" and Slowthai's "most exhilarating project to date from front to back." Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Paul Simpson concluded that, "Ugly is less of a major stylistic shift than it might seem, as slowthai harnesses his punkish energy in a way that seems natural and fitting. It's clearly a challenging, confrontational album, but it also feels like the artist's purest expression yet." ==Track listing==

Notes: • "Happy" and "Ugly" are stylized in all caps. • signifies a co-producer. • signifies an additional producer. == Personnel ==

Musicians • Tyron Frampton – vocals, keyboards • Yuri Shibuichi – drums (tracks 2, 3, 10) • Blane Muise – background vocals (4) • Liam Toon – drums (4, 5, 9–11) • Carlos O'Connell – background vocals (8) • Grian Chatten – background vocals (8) • Conor Deegan – bass guitar (8) • Tom Coll – drums (8) • Conor Curley – electric guitar (8) • Oly Carey – background vocals (12) Production • Christian Wright – mastering • Jacob Bugden – mixing • Dan Carey – mixing • Alexis Smith, Andrea Cozzaglio – engineering == Charts ==