Review: Shame, Drunk Tank Pink

Drunk Tank Pink, the second album from post-punk youngsters, Shame, is the polar opposite of a sophomore slump. Recorded during a twenty-day session with wiz-producer James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz), the album is a fiery, step-forward for the Brixton five-piece, one that dwarfs their debut, Songs of Praise, in sound, scope, and ambition. It’s not superior to their debut because of a laser focus on any one style of punk or rock. The boys’ are still jumping between genres, decades, and continents like they’re in a punk-rock time machine, from the Fugazi tilt of the album’s opener, “Alphabet,” to the angular shredding à la Wire and Television on “Water in the Well.” But this time around, they’re wearing their influences with a greater degree of pride, like that kid at the punk rock show sporting a patchwork of band names on their thrift-store leather jacket.

If you’re looking for something to thrash to while sheltering in place, Drunk Tank Pink has plenty of noisy peaks. “Harsh Degrees” catches fire with a Molotov of rock n’ roll guitar licks, while the clamorous crescendo of “March Days” has been ringing in my ears for days. But it’s the band’s newfound grasp of melody and rhythm that keeps Drunk Tank Pink from sounding like a rehash of the past. With its groovy bassline and gothic vocal harmonies, “Human, for a Minute” strolls into Stone Roses territory, allowing Steen’s coming-of-age poetry some room to breath: “I’m half the man I should be,” he laments over a soaring guitar solo. After, the band explodes into “Great Dog” with Black Flag fury, as if the introspective, quieter track never happened.

Much has been written about the band’s worship of British guitar bands, and on Drunk Tank Pink, Shame still has their Dr. Martens firmly rooted in the traditions of post-1975 English rock. But by looting inspiration from the sounds of Los Angeles and New York as much as London, Shame wrote a punk record that contains emotional multitudes, one where despair, joy, anger, and humor don’t just coexist — you can’t believe they ever existed separately in hardcore in the first place.

Listen to Drunk Tank Pink on Bandcamp below: