Shame Drunk Tank Pink

There are moments on Shame's Drunk Tank Pink where you almost have to reach for the sleeve to check that this is the same band who made 2018's Songs Of Praise. Such is the jump shame have made from the riotous post-punk of their debut to the sprawling adventurism laid out in the bigger, bolder James Ford produced follow-up. The genius of Drunk Tank Pink is how frontman Charlie Steen's lyrical themes dovetail with the music. Opener "Alphabet" dissects the premise of performance over a siren call of nervous, jerking guitars, its chorus thrown out like a beer bottle across a mosh pit. "Nigel Hitter," meanwhile, turns the mundanity of routine into something spectacular via a disjointed jigsaw of syncopated rhythms and broken wristed punk funk. The result is an enormous expansion of Shame's sonic arsenal.