shame

In London’s Windmill scene, they’re the rebellious underdogs who start a pub brawl just so they can write songs about it. They started out with broken instruments – some held together only by duct tape – and were endlessly frustrated by the neoliberal decline of British society and its outdated cult of the monarchy. But shame have transformed destitution and raw anger at the status quo into a resource they’ve used to create some of the best British punk albums of the current decade. Thus, “Drunk Tank Pink” (2021) and “Food For Worms” (2023) have in just a few years become goddamn classics that reveal the grey-blue present of a re-feudalised state in a raw and passionate yet simultaneously also melancholic and introspective way. But shame couldn’t care less about streaming figures or hype; they actively attack every convention, every threat of complacency, and fuse post-punk, hardcore, and garage rock into fresh, crashing, subversive songs. With their latest album, “Cutthroat” (2025), they also challenge, surprise, and unsettle their listeners while simultaneously discovering that playful catchiness can be a vehicle for continuing the rebellion.