shame - Food For Worms

 

Well, how time flies when you're not particularly having fun. shame, (please note the lower case, it's what they want), one of the bands who were originally associated with the scene which came to be known as The New Post Punk one (or something like that), centred around the Brixton Windmill mostly, have just put out their third album Food For Worms. And it's really, really good. 

No, don't run and hide, or tell your mum. I mean it. This is a scene I've been grumpy and disdainful and behaved in a manner befitting of a man in late middle age on this blog about in the last couple of years. Sorry, but we all turn into Victor Meldrew at a certain point. It'll happen to you too if it hasn't already.

But these bands are coming good. Goat Girl first. But Goat Girl have always been good. Next Dry Cleaning. They turned my stomach for quite a while but I thought their second album Stumpwork, from last year, was just excellent work. Now it's shame's turn to emerge from their chrysalis. Whatever next Black Midi, Black Country, New Road? This is all becoming like The Book of Revelations. Is there a young Post Punk band called The Seven Horses of the Apocalypse? If so, they're due to put out their masterpiece any day now.

I've liked some of shame's stuff previously without ever falling totally under their spell. They didn't seem to have come up with the song, or certainly not the album that really demanded attention previously. I didn't care for their singer's voice enough. He seemed to belong at the mic of a non-descript early Eighties New Wave or long raincoat band like The Comsat Angels. Apologies to fans of The Comsat Angels. Now shame have done both. And I don't mind the vocalist on this either.

The songs are those of a highly capable Alternative Rock band. There's no particular need to label them Post Punk. They have certain stylistic resemblances with great bands from that period, (by which I mean the original Post Punk, circa '78). but they have more than enough of their own  DNA on Food For Worms. to deserve to be considered fully in their own right and light.

There's plenty of righteous anger here. shame are clearly very angry and why not. Look around you. It's good to have bands around as capable as them to express this anger so skillfully and righteously. They're a band by now more than capable of martialing and managing their songs to such a degree that they'll be demanding larger venues and more column inches than they were granted or probably deserved previously.

This is hardly life affirming music, but it's powerful and relevant. shame are going places. Give this is a listen. I certainly will over the coming weeks and months. Comparisons are spurious so I haven't made any. shame have stepped into their own spotlight.