Shame return with ‘Six-Pack’ and comical PS1-inspired video
South London punks Shame have returned with ‘Six-Pack’, the second offering from their imminent third album, Food for Worms. A stylistic departure from the record’s lead single, ‘Fingers of Steel’ – a slower, anthemic piece featuring dovetailing guitars – the new cut is a chaotic mass of energy, heavily inferring that the band might be about to release their most exciting record yet.
Carried by the use of the wah on one of the guitars, the rhythm section is also customarily dynamic, with frontman Charlie Steen more unhinged than we’ve ever seen him, delivering his most surreal lyrics yet.
The bridge section also has to be given credit. It’s a spaced-out moment that effectively breaks the unrelenting speed of the song up, showing that the quintet are much more than a post-punk outfit. There’s a reason they’ve kept people interested as the aforementioned genre fades away; artistic dexterity.
Steen sings at the new single’s inception: “Everything you see Is free, within this room. / And your ex-wife and ex-daughter, Who hate your guts to death. / They love you, Within this room. / Everything within this room was made just for you, / Chattels of deception are only good when they’re in use.”
“‘Six-Pack’ is essentially the opposite of a Room 101; instead, it’s a room where all your wildest desires can come true and will be showered upon you,” Charlie Steen explained in a press release. “Be it commodities, self-obsession, foods and B-lister celebrities, it’ll all be there if you want it to. You’ve done time behind bars and now you’re making time in-front of them. It’s time to make up for anything you’ve lost or wasted, it’s time to get it all.”
To aid the new track, Shame have shared a hilarious PS1-inspired video. It invites watchers into “a room where all your wildest desires can come true”. It depicts an animated version of Napoleon Bonaparte working out before he is joined by a host of other historical figures, including Margaret Thatcher and a bionic Osama Bin Laden.
The video was directed by Gilbert Bannerman and animated by Cyrus Hayley. “The idea was to make a parody of a middle-aged bloke thinking he’s a king for going to the gym once,” Bannerman said. “I read a lot about Napoleon and thought it would be a laugh to make it about him. The style comes from trying to make my youth spent playing PS1 not entirely wasted.”
Food for Worms is set for release on February 24th.
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