Shame: Drunk Tank Pink [DEAD OCEANS]

Why you'll love it

Drunk Tank Pink on vinyl, the James Ford-produced album that turned Shame from a hard-charging live band into something stranger and sharper. It drew universal acclaim, scoring 82 on Metacritic.

This edition

• Download card included
• Lyrics included
• Obi strip

About the album

Charlie Steen painted his bedroom pink, called it the womb and later found out the shade has a name: drunk tank pink, a colour said to calm people down. It gave the album its title, though very little on it sits still.

The songs took shape on a group trip to Scotland with the electronic artist Makeness in 2019, and most of the words were written at The Room Studios in Hither Green. James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine) produced and mixed it, and the band's guitars twist into knotty, almost danceable shapes. "Alphabet" bursts out of the gate, "Water in the Well" lurches and grins, "Snow Day" builds into a slow-burning storm, and "Nigel Hitter" and "Born in Luton" show how much the rhythm section had grown. The black-and-white cover photo is of drummer Charlie Forbes's father.

It arrived in January 2021, so the band toured it in February on what they called the Socially Distant Tour, playing rooms where everyone had to keep their space. Shame have always been a front-row sort of band, and they took the seated crowds with remarkably good grace.

Also at Kops: more Shame on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Dead Oceans (cat# DOC204LP-C7), the 2021 album.