Shame - Food for Worms

Given three weeks by their management to debut two sets of entirely new material at London venue Brixton Windmill, the final result of that experiment shows, at the very least, that Shame are a band who thrive under pressure. Dubbed “the Lamborghini of Shame records” by vocalist Charlie Steen, not only do Shame sound rawer and more unbridled than they’ve ever done before on ‘Food for Worms’, but they also might have produced the finest album of their career in the process. Foot rarely off the throttle, and able to unleash pure thunder seemingly ex nihilo, here Shame feel permanently akin to the state of a long distance runner exhausting the last of their energies on that final lap sprint, plumbing for that last drop of gas in the tank and, without fail, always finding it. Between the punkish rip-snorters (‘Six Pack’; ‘Alibis’), there are also moments of considered maturity. Whether it’s the American slackerisms of ‘Burning By Design’, the balladry of ‘Adderall’, or the epic ‘Orchid’ - swishing from folkish shanty to blitzing hard rock with immaculate design - ‘Food For Worms’ bulges with high-octane surprise. This is the sound of a band performing at the peak of their powers.