ANCHR's Artist of the Week: Shame
Photo by Sam Gregg
As a frequent concert attendee (pre-pandemic), one of my favorite things in life was seeing a band perform live for the first time, especially if there’s been a lot of buzz around them. The band Shame sticks out in my memory as one of those acts that everyone was talking about leading up to South by Southwest festival in 2018, and I can still vividly remember watching them play an afternoon gig under the sweltering Austin sunshine on my first day at the fest. After listening to their debut album Songs of Praise, Shame had won me over as a fan, but there was something particularly magnetic and cathartic about witnessing the band’s lead singer Charlie Steen interact with an audience. Seeing songs like “Concrete,” “Friction,” and “Tasteless” brought to life in front of a crowd added another layer to the band that you can’t get from listening to the record. Following that initial gig, I saw Shame a handful of times throughout the years they toured their debut album, and there was never a dull moment during their shows.
In late 2020, Shame released their first single to follow up their debut album with the track “Alphabet.” With its lead-in of distorted guitar, a bouncy backbone of a drumbeat and the amplified vocals in the chorus, the song sets the tone for Shame’s recently released sophomore record, titled Drunk Tank Pink. The new record came out nearly three years to the day after the band’s first release, and while it stays true to group’s South London post-punk roots, there’s also an added dimension of maturity and intensity. While working on Drunk Tank Pink, guitarist Sean Coyle-Smith said that when he got to the point of finding guitar-playing to be mind-numbing, he began to experiment with writing outside of a conventional “rock” style. His efforts come across in the texturized riffs in songs like “Water in the Well” and “6/1.” Throughout the album, there are moments of frenetic swells and built up tension, with just the right amount of release sprinkled in to keep listeners on our toes.
You can listen to Drunk Tank Pink in full below, and be sure to check out our interview with Shame for more on the band.