shame — Food for Worms — Album Review
Indie | Rock | Post-Punk
Listen on Spotify | Listen on Apple Music
It was back in 2018 that I first discovered the South London band known as shame. With the release of their sophomore album Songs of Praise, that album actually stood as the second one I have ever reviewed. It was that album I absolutely loved for its festive feel, and spring-like atmosphere, along with a very good versatility of moods.
Their sophomore project, Drunk Tank Pink fared pretty well as well. For an album that was released in the second year of lockdown, it felt like there was a lot of narrative pre-meditation that went into the project.
That being said, hopes were certainly high for shame to come out with their third project, and what they described themselves as “the Lamborghini of shame albums”, and named Food for Worms.
That description felt somewhat apt when listening through some of the teaser tracks that led up to the release of Food for Worms. In particular, I really enjoyed “Six Pack”, as it arguably had me the most hyped for this new album, thanks to its unrelenting energy, badass feel, and intriguing lyrics.
Getting into the full album, I would admit that I was being absolutely swamped by a plethora of new musical projects (and even to this day, I’m still playing catch-up). That being said, there wasn’t an awful amount of time for Food for Worms to leave an impact on me.
Thankfully, in the case of this album, it does bring a nice balance of being compact enough to be a pretty accessible listen, and offer enough musical content to stand as a full experience. Food for Worms offers 10 tracks, and a runtime of just just under 45 minutes; a pretty perfect medium when it comes to albums, in my opinion.
However, the album as a while, in terms of the actual music it offers listeners, unfortunately felt quite lacking in both uniqueness and atmosphere. Where I was once vibing out substantially to the sonic goodness of the best that an album like Songs of Praise had to offer, that feeling felt sorely lacking here, which leads me to feel that Food for Worms is actually the weakest of the three albums that shame has put out, in my opinion.
Much of the tracks on here reminded me more of going to see some kind of local indie rock or post-punk band in Brighton, as opposed to listening to shame. This album simply felt lacking in any kind of signature aesthetic that shame has.
It’s certainly not a bad project by any stretch of the imagination, but shame have shown that they could do way better on past projects. Where Songs of Praise excelled in atmosphere, and Drunk Tank Pink did so with its narrative, Food for Worms has very little going for it. Even with my limited runtime of giving this album a listen, I could still sense just how slippery of a grip this album had on me.
Favourite Tracks: Six Pack | The Fall of Paul
Least Favourite Track: Adderall | All The People
Dead Oceans
