“I don’t think you can be in your own head forever,” Shame singer Charlie Steen has said in the run up to the release of Food for Worms. “It’s weird, isn’t it? Popular music is always about love, heartbreak, or yourself. There isn’t much about your mates.”
Perhaps looking inwards is an inevitable side effect of the last three years of strife, particularly if you happen to be a musician where having a career is largely a thing of the past. But after announing themselves in 2018 with the dirt-flecked indie of Songs of Praise, the quintet then followed it up with the largely tune-free Drunk Tank Pink, struggling with the pressure it seemed of who they wanted to be.
Food For Worms doesn’t resolve many of these apparent tensions however, even if that was the intent. What the listener does get is a by now familiar mix of energy (Opener Fingers of Steel, Alibis) and emotional drag (Drowsier anti-drug themed Adderall). Patience is sporadically rewarded via the muscular wah-wah of Six Pack and Orchid picks out some melody amongst the obtuse angles, but like everything else in the present, friendships are a complicated thing and if Steen thought writing about them would make things any easier, this is a record that only proves the opposite.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 