Thanks to Brexit and COVID-19, the irresistible wave of young English post-punk bands continues to feed at its source, so much so that much of the revitalization of rock is now happening through the British Isles. Revealed in 2018 with the hard-hitting Songs of PraiseShame arrives five years later with Food for Wormsboth a mise en abyme and a springboard to a promising future.
Weakened by the pandemic slump and certain mental health problems affecting singer Charlie Steen, the London group needed to be shaken up; he was given three weeks to prepare two shows in which the quintet was to present new material. Recorded live in the studio shortly after these two shows, Food for Worms thus wants to be a short-circuit of punk energy which crackles from the first notes of the extracts Fingers of Steel And Six Pack.
The set is however well contained in a sheath which testifies to the maturity that the group forged while working on its second album, Drunk Tank Pink, more complex and more accomplished. The song Yankee, the third piece of the new album, precisely testifies to the creative finesse of Shame. It also goes through a few choices as convincing as they are new, especially with the ballads Adderall And Orchidthe latter foregrounding Charlie Steen’s baritone vocals paired with a stunning honky-tonk piano bridge that ends in a rough, tense finale.
As for Different Peoplewe see the group navigating with ease in more groovy waters, the uninhibited use of wah-wah in Six Pack bears witness to the same audacity, a remarkable fact for a group that is closely associated with the post-punk new wave.
But precisely, even if some of Shame’s guitar lines could have come from the fingers of Johnny Marr, Robert Smith or even The Edge in other times, it is precisely by taking liberties of this kind that the group arrives to avoid style pitfalls. This is promising for guys who are just 25 years old.
post punk
Food for Worms
Shame
Dead Oceans