shame Announce New Album Food for Worms, Share “Fingers of Steel” Video
Photo by Pooneh Ghana
South London rockers shame have announced their third album, Food for Worms, coming Feb. 24, 2023, on Dead Oceans. Lead single and album opener “Fingers of Steel” is out now alongside a music video.
Shame frontman Charlie Steen describes the band’s Drunk Tank Pink follow-up as “the Lamborghini of shame records,” while a press release says the album, produced by Flood (Nick Cave, U2, PJ Harvey), “marks a sonic departure from anything they’ve done before, and—for the first time—the band are not delving inwards, but seeking to capture the world around them.” Steen says of this shift in focus, “I don’t think you can be in your own head forever. It’s weird, isn’t it? Popular music is about love, heartbreak, or yourself. There isn’t much about your mates.”
On “Fingers of Steel,” Steen and company pair this new perspective with a fresh sense of purpose and restraint. The brute force post-punk of their 2018 debut Songs of Praise is gone, replaced by more clear-eyed precision and complex instrumentation. A distant piano is soon joined by staccato guitar and backing vocals, as Steen observes an avatar of our modern plight: Alone, indoors, days devoid of meaningful connection, chasing fake validation online—always wanting, never fulfilled. “Well, this time you feel that you’ve been found / But when you look there’s no one around,” shame sing in unison, their singalong punctuated with spidery riffs. Looming synths cast a shadow over the song halfway in, like the sun going down at the end of an already-dark day. An explosive solo races like an anxious mind, shortly before the song drifts to an abrupt end.
Steen says of the “Fingers of Steel” music video, “Self-obsession, social media flagellation and death can all be seen in this Oscar-nominated performance. No one’s ever done a video like this before and when you watch it, you’ll see why. Think Casablanca, but in color, and better.”
shame have announced an international headlining tour in support of Food for Worms, their biggest to date. Their run kicks off in Dublin, Ireland, on March 1, 2023, spending March and April in the U.K. and E.U. before heading to North America in May and into early June, stopping in Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Chicago before concluding (at least for now) with a June 4 show in New Orleans.
Watch the “Fingers of Steel” video (dir. James Humby) and see the details of Food for Worms below.
