Shame once received a hate letter that read, “Dear Shame…
You can’t even compare yourself to a crusty piece of shite hanging from Mark E
Smith’s slender arse. Some would suggest that it’s time to call it a day. Give
over.”
Well, the London five-piece is audibly indebted to
Smith’s revered Manchester post-punk group The Fall – louche vocal delivery,
abrasive and atonal guitar and barbed lyrics all present and correct – but
debut album ‘Songs Of Praise’ courses with venom and a lithe vigour that is all
their own. The band belongs to a fertile south London scene that lays waste to
the myth that guitar music is no longer a place for innovation, excitement and
– in Shame’s case – lyrics that splat in your earholes like lumps of hot,
rotten fruit.
Post-punk is such a long-running style that its 21st
century practitioners sometimes sound like they're going through the motions,
but Shame's Songs of Praise is a reminder of just how vital it is at its best.
On their debut album, the South London band certainly recalls legends like
Television Personalities and Gang of Four, as well as newer acts such as Iceage
and Savages. But even if the framework of their music is familiar, the energy
they bring to it feels new, electrifying their songs as they bridge the
personal and political with wit and fury. On the bristling
"Concrete," singer Charlie Steen and bassist Josh Finerty's vocals
ricochet off each other as they express both sides of the internal debate of
someone trapped in a go-nowhere relationship; later, on "Gold Hole,"
Shame explore the fine line between exploitation and empowerment as they teeter
between taut and frantic. Here and throughout Songs of Praise, it feels like
Shame are using these sounds to rage against the world's injustices for the first
time. Steen's charisma is one of the band's greatest assets, and his charisma
carries lyrics as on-the-nose as "Friction"'s "Do you know the
difference between what is right and what is wrong?" Shame also displays
an impressive amount of range and ambition on Songs of Praise. On the
Cribs-esque "One Rizla" and "Tasteless," they prove they're
just as skilled at polished guitar pop as they are ferocious rants like
"Donk" and "The Lick." The band even gets a bit arty on the
album's dour opener "Dust on Trial" and particularly on its
seven-minute finale "Angie," a slow-burning tale of star-crossed love
and suicide. Whether they're sophisticated or visceral, Shame's energy and
confidence makes Songs of Praise an exciting debut from one of the most
vital-sounding British rock bands of the late 2010s.
