Tuesday 11/24: Shame—"Water in the Well"
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the British post-punk band Shame.
Welcome to Endless Scroll, the brainchild of Eli Enis (he/him) and Eric Bennett (they/them). Since Feb. 2019, we’ve been a weekly podcast about music, the internet, and where those two things intersect. Now we’re, also a M-F newsletter about songs. Our format is simple: a link to a song and a short take from each of us about what we think of it. Each day of the week has a corresponding genre: Monday is indie, Tuesday is punk, Wednesday is hip-hop, Thursday is pop, and Friday is misc.
Today, we share our thoughts on a new song by the British post-punk band Shame.
Shame—"Water in the Well"
Eli Enis:
Shame are a band, much like Fontaines D.C., that I want to dislike for completely unwarranted reasons. I don’t know how associated they actually are IRL, but they’re a British post-punk band who signed to a big indie label (Dead Oceans) for their first record, which puts them right alongside IDLES in my mind. I’m always skeptical of punk bands who don’t work their way up the DIY food-chain, but maybe that’s an unfair judgement to cast since DIY has revealed itself again and again to be a microcosm of hyper-woke capitalism, so maybe the merits of authenticity should come solely from the sound of the group and not their perceived financial position/the scope of their fanbase right out the gate.
Anyways, I wasn’t moved by Shame’s 2018 record Songs of Praise, and I wasn’t particularly moved by their September comeback single “Alphabet”. But I must say, I really do like their new song “Water in the Well”, mostly because it sounds like The Hives at certain points (The Hives were the first band I Got Into in middle-school, so they’ll always be my garage-rock revival first loves). But unlike the pretentious and stiff “Alphabet”, “Water in the Well” also has an energetic playfulness to it that actually inspires me to move and bang my head and feel something. There are hefty gang vocals, an electric riff, and a shouted hook that I can imagine screaming back in the live setting, whereas most IDLES songs on their last two albums would make me feel embarrassed to shout along to. Shame aren’t the grittiest or the most technical or the most groundbreaking post-punk band of today, but their new song is fun and that’s good enough for me.
Eric Bennett:
“Water in the Well,” the new single from British rockers Shame sees them embracing their raucous punk sound, but coming off rather indistinguishable. It manages to keep me engaged, and is constructed in such a way that were I to hear it out in the wild, I likely wouldn't protest or even think twice about it. The song is fairly catchy, but from the fitful basslines to Charlie Steen’s full-throated vocals, I can’t hear it as anything more than a rudimentary mixture of Parquet Courts and The Clash that doesn’t achieve the mastery of either band.