There’s not enough time to break down the cognitive dissonance of younger audiences discovering Shame through supporting Fontaines D.C. – who, lest we forget, got their big break as support for them. All you need to know is that Shame are cool again and, in perhaps the coolest move possible, they couldn’t care less. They’re right back on the offensive with ‘Cutthroat’, their fourth studio album, which they’ve bluntly described as less an exercise in “poor me” and more in “fuck you”.
That much is abundantly clear on the album’s opening suite. The title track’s walloping disco beat is matched to a riff with lasers set to stun, while fearless frontman Charlie Steen invokes Kevin Smith’s 1999 film Dogma of all things. “Big, beautiful naked women fall out of the sky / Motherfucker, I was born to die,” he barks with the same bravado that pricked up ears when ‘Songs Of Praise’ first hit. Just when you’re locked in, there’s a buzzing AutoTune-driven chorus to blindside you.
If that didn’t whip you into shape, ‘Cowards Around’ will. With Charlie Forbes’ breathless drumming, invoking Led Zeppelin‘s ‘Rock & Roll’, the propulsive track takes merciless aim at anyone deemed the C-word, ranging from the hilarious (“people who drink protein shakes”) to the always-prescient (“members of Parliament”). It’s one of the closest times Shame have come to capturing the energy of their live show in-studio – you can practically feel zippy bassist Josh Finerty doing barrel rolls as it plays.
Elsewhere, ‘Cutthroat’ is at its most intriguing when it showcases the band’s depth and multi-faceted nature. In addition to the electronic elements (‘To and Fro’, ‘After Party’), there’s also the artsy spaghetti-western pastiche of ‘Lampião’ and the pristine jangle-pop of ‘Spartak’. They’re risky, sure, but they also meld with Shame’s idiosyncrasies enough to remain identifiably them.
Steen, too, remains a fascinating character study. Here, he isn’t always the proverbial preacher in the pulpit; sometimes, he’s out the back of the church, taking a drag and having a crisis of faith. In more relatively subdued moments, like the pensive ‘Quiet Life’, there’s less of a sense that he’s portraying a persona – rather, that he’s trying to get to the heart of the human condition.
By the time ‘Axis of Evil’ rolls around to close things out, you feel as though you’ve been given the fullest scope yet of what the band are capable of. The album’s final number feels like a disco inferno in the most literal sense, as Steen deadpans his way into an apocalyptic dance groove while his bandmates egg him on one synth arpeggio at a time. For a band that could have ended up derailed by COVID or otherwise by becoming habitually formulaic, ‘Cutthroat’ is testament to Shame’s unwavering ability to adapt and evolve.
Details
- Record label: Dead Oceans
- Release date: September 5, 2025