Slowthai is back with his third studio album Ugly. Pulling himself apart and exposing his anxieties of the last couple of years is key to this next phase of Slowthai. "The first album was the sound of where I'm from and everything I thought I knew," he says. "The second album is what was relevant to me at that moment in time, the present. And this album is completely me – about how I feel and what I want to be...it's everything I've been leading up to." Ugly is about reconnecting with first principles. Plunging into rock music, with as much singing as rapping, it is both a striking departure for Slowthai and a return to the roots of Tyron Kaymone Frampton. When he was a teenager in Northampton he loved emotionally intense rock music, notably the likes of Nirvana, Radiohead and Daniel Johnston, and wanted to join a band but that's hard when you don't play an instrument and feel self-conscious about singing in public. Hip hop, his other love, enabled him to be a self-reliant vocalist and producer. Produced by Dan Carey at his home studio in South London and alongside frequent collaborator Kwes Darko, Ugly is a fluid combination of musicians including Ethan P. Flynn, Jockstrap's Taylor Skye, Beabadoobee guitarist Jacob Bugden, drummer Liam Toon, and on the dark and woozy title track, his friends Fontaines D.C. The album cover is suitably up close and personal, with the camera zooming in tight on the left side of his face. The title of the album – an acronym for U Gotta Love Yourself – is freshly tattooed beneath his eye.