shame

Following in the unflinching footsteps of musicians and writers such as the Fall, Television Personalities, and Irvine Welsh, Shame combine keen-eyed observations with a willingness to challenge themselves and their audience. Among the first in the wave of U.K. bands reinterpreting post-punk for the late 2010s and early 2020s, the South London band's bracing 2018 debut album, Songs of Praise -- which they recorded when they were barely in their twenties -- bridged the personal and political with wit and fury. Shame took their barreling energy in wider-ranging directions with the dance-punk and highlife flirtations of 2021's Drunk Tank Pink, the introspective experiments of 2023's Food for Worms, and a return to brash rock & roll on 2025's Cutthroat.