{"id":6512,"date":"2018-02-04T16:46:31","date_gmt":"2018-02-04T21:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/?p=6512"},"modified":"2018-02-09T12:43:53","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T17:43:53","slug":"shame-songs-of-praise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/","title":{"rendered":"Shame <br>Songs of Praise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-6513\" src=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise.jpg\" alt=\"Shame, Songs of Praise\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise.jpg 250w, https:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a>With the recent passing of Mark E. Smith, The Fall frontman\u2019s irascible nature has been recalled as much as his incredible body of work. Indeed, it\u2019s hard to separate his reputation as a cantankerous raconteur from the barbed racket that he and a laundry list of musicians made over the years. But whatever you think about Smith as a human being, his discography speaks for itself. What he seemed to intrinsically understand is that the best art is frequently fueled by piss and vinegar and not pretty thoughts about love and happiness.<\/p>\n<p>As evidenced by their debut, this is something that the boys in Shame\u2014youngsters not even old enough to drink legally in the States\u2014also seem to get. <i>Songs of Praise<\/i> (Dead Oceans) is a record that immediately grabs the listener by the balls and doesn\u2019t let go until the very end of its last track. In an age when too many bands put style before substance, Shame is refreshingly brash, full of the same kind of vitriol that Smith fancied.<\/p>\n<p>Musically, <i>Songs of Praise<\/i> is a herky-jerky mix of post-punk grooves, sputtering pop hooks, and noisy frayed ends, somewhere between Gang of Four and Iceage. As such, the album is not weighed down by cacophony, but rather traipses along at a brisk pace, with cuts like \u201cConcrete\u201d skating between styles with natural ease. Thrown into this mix is singer Charlie Steen, whose heavily accented aphorisms about love and life are the thread that ties it all together. Throughout the record, he spits out admissions that the rest of us might be too timid to vocalize, no matter how much we may want to. On \u201cOne Rizla,\u201d for example, he tells some admirer, \u201cIf you think I love you, you\u2019ve got the wrong idea,\u201d over a melting guitar lead. Meanwhile on \u201cTasteless,\u201d he confesses, \u201cI like you better when you\u2019re not around.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, what\u2019s best about <i>Songs of Praise<\/i> is its utter lack of discretion and pretension. Here is a band, belying its name, that knows its better to be reckless than cautious, better to be honest than polite, and is all the better for it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the recent passing of Mark E. Smith, The Fall frontman\u2019s irascible nature has been recalled as much as his incredible body of work. Indeed, it\u2019s hard to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[34,1120,2161],"class_list":["post-6512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-reviews","tag-album-review","tag-dead-oceans","tag-shame"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Shame Songs of Praise - The Agit Reader<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shame Songs of Praise - The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"With the recent passing of Mark E. Smith, The Fall frontman\u2019s irascible nature has been recalled as much as his incredible body of work. Indeed, it\u2019s hard to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Agit Reader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TheAgitReader\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-04T21:46:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-09T17:43:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stephen Slaybaugh\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@agitreader\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Stephen Slaybaugh\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Stephen Slaybaugh\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/#\/schema\/person\/4c0a2e33892559e5e2d68fa9de669d89\"},\"headline\":\"Shame Songs of Praise\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-04T21:46:31+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-09T17:43:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\"},\"wordCount\":368,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/shame-songs_of_praise.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Album Review\",\"Dead Oceans\",\"Shame\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Album Reviews\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/agitreader.com\/wp2\/shame-songs-of-praise\/\",\"name\":\"Shame Songs of Praise - 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