Shame’s elemental post-punk-leaning debut LP, Songs of Praise, hit airwaves just over two years ago now. After enduring a painfully long period of waiting since then — as the band described on their socials, “Many years have toiled. Brutal winters and fearsome summers have passed” — fans have been eager to hear what they’ve got up their sleeves, especially after an excruciating series of teasers on Twitter throughout this last week. Today, thankfully, that period of suffering has been put to rest as the band has officially returned with their first new single since 2018, a track called “Alphabet.”
Upon first listen, I was (unsurprisingly) immediately hooked; quite literally on the edge of the wooden kitchen chair I’m currently sat upon. The track’s raucous drum beat, screeching guitar, and squawking on behalf of brutal vocalist Charlie Steen drew me back to my first time hearing Songs of Praise and being let into Shame’s world. It’s melody ushered in a euphoric, nostalgic feeling, and that feeling remains as I’m on my fifth (and counting) listen.
“Don’t forget your Ps and Qs; please smile when we tell you to,” Steen urges during the track’s opening minute, giving way to the song’s enthralling, cultish atmosphere. He continues, “Are you waiting to feel good? Are you praying like you should?.” Under the surface, lines such as this give off a backhanded reference to something slightly sinister. Are they making commentary on the hivemind mentality we can enter when brainwashed by The Powers that Be? The constant need to abide by the rules set out by society? Something else? I don’t want to put words in the band’s mouth, but they’re definitely commenting on something, and something fucked up indeed, in spite of the track’s elementary title.
On the release, Steen explained,
“‘Alphabet’ is a direct question, to the audience and the performer, on whether any of this will ever be enough to reach satisfaction. At the time of writing it, I was experiencing a series of surreal dreams where a manic subconscious was bleeding out of me and seeping into the lyrics. All the unsettling and distressing imagery I faced in my sleep have taken on their own form in the video.”
Speaking of the maddening concoction that is the “Alphabet” video, it unfolds with a variety of different scenes, each more absurd than the last, which comes across as though the lads have been attempting to make their own Kubrick-esque horror films, but only managed to gather a few nightmarish clips together (some on film, other digital) to resemble their ideas as one holistic work. The video is bathed in shades of red, orange, and brown, as if channeling the repetitive color play and spine-tingling energy known of Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) (obviously, with their own twist). This design choice — especially alongside a couple of black-and-white close-ups of a few characters’ faces — makes the video all the more sinister.
Its chilling tone is already set as it opens with drummer Charlie Forbes tied up and struggling to get free from a room where Sean Coyle-Smith (guitar) is incapacitated, bloodied, and lying on top of a refrigerator. Soon after, we are introduced to some distorted, nonhuman figures, leading into a sequence where Steen and his girlfriend attempt to sit at a table for a meal, but their chairs are constantly being pulled from beneath them by some unknown entity. Next, Steen sits, reading a newspaper with the headline, “Are you sitting comfortably?,” and it appears he isn’t. He’s restless, glancing over his shoulders at the shadowy figures lurking behind him. This same sort of disturbing, jarring energy of scenes such as this continues as the video lurches on: screaming matches, tango dances, body contortions, brawling, and shadow puppet-play are just a handful of the events that arrive in succession throughout its quick-paced format.
As everything comes to a close, we return to Steen and his girlfriend. They’re finally seated, bowls of spaghetti before them, but this time, they’re wearing odd papier-mache masks that almost resemble members of the peanut army from The Proud Family Movie. If you’re having a difficult time wrapping your head around just what you’re seeing, it seems as though you’re watching the video correctly.
With the holistic video considered, there’s a lot to unpack in the context of the track, but one thing’s for sure: “Alphabet” has got my attention and won’t be letting it go anytime soon. This song and it’s accompanying video are jarring, but it’s fitting that they would be — if Shame was going to ring in a new era, they had to do it in a big way. And in a big way, they did
Just after the song’s release, the band tweeted, “Only two years until the next single dw.” One can only hope they’re bullshitting.
