The first New Music Friday proper of 2021 sees the release of Shame’s long awaited second album.
Shame frontman Charlie Steen has described his band’s follow-up to the essential 2018 debut Songs Of Praise, as having a core theme of ‘identity crisis’, our review opining that at times on Drunk Tank Pink, ‘it’s hard to escape the impression of being dragged into one of his nightmares’:
“Great Dog’s two minutes of messy sonic harassment feels like being bitten by one, while Snow Day lunges from precision menace to atonal noise and back again.”
“Much of this distortion seems to come from the lack of truth or, in the current perma-crisis, viable options available to the powerless.”
“This maybe explains why Drunk Tank Pink never finds the groove of its predecessor, the sort of dislocation that turns Human, For A Minute into being not so much about love but realisation, the singer turning the refrain, ‘I’m half the man I should be’, over and over.”
Have a listen on Live4ever: