Richard Dawson - 2020 review

The Guardian 100

(Domino)
Dawson adds pop-facing elements to folk on this brilliant album, full of stories of a benighted Britain

Next month, Ken Loach releases his new film, Sorry We Missed You, about a Newcastle father with a zero-hours delivery job that turns him into a kind of automaton. It has the ideal companion piece in Fulfilment Centre, a relentless song from Newcastle singer-songwriter Richard Dawson, told from the perspective of a – distinctly Amazonian – warehouse worker slogging themselves to death as they pick out dash-cams and shaving foam. In fact, each of the songs here are Palme d’Or-worthy Loachian masterpieces, full of quiet tenacity on an island slowly turning sour.