CUTTHROAT (HOT SHOTS VINYL) | VINYL RECORD (LP)

Shame, Cutthroat is shame at their blistering best. An unapologetic new album with Grammy winning producer John Congleton at the helm; it's souped up and supercharged. It's exactly where you want shame to be. Still in their twenties, the five childhood friends - Charlie Steen, guitarists Sean Coyle-Smith and Eddie Green, bassist Josh Finerty and drummer Charlie Forbes - have grown Shame exponentially, with ambitious sonic ideas and the technical chops to execute them. Having proved themselves several times over with legendary live shows and three critically-acclaimed albums under their belts, Shame went into Cutthroat ready to create a new Ground Zero. "This is about who we are," says Steen. "Our live shows aren't performance art - they're direct, confrontational and raw. That's always been the root of us. We live in crazy times. But it's not about 'Poor me.' It's about 'F*** you'." Crucial to this incendiary new outlook was producer John Congleton (St. Vincent, Angel Olsen). From their initial meeting, Congleton's no-bullshit approach became a guiding force to streamline the band's ideas. Stamped throughout with Shame's trademark sense of humour, the album takes on the big issues of today and gleefully toys with them. Casting a merciless eye on themes of conflict and corruption; hunger and desire; lust, envy and the omnipresent shadow of cowardice. Musically, too, the record plays with visceral new ideas. Making electronic music on tour for fun, Coyle-Smith had previously seen the loops he was crafting as a separate entity to the things he wrote for Shame. Then, he realised, maybe they didn't have to be. "This time, anything could go if it sounded good and you got it right," he says. The result is an album that revels in the idiosyncrasies of life, raising an eyebrow and asking the ugly questions that so often get tactfully brushed over. "I'm not here to answer the questions, I'm a 27-year-old idiot..." Steen caveats with a self-effacing chuckle. But the one answer that Cutthroat gives with a resounding flourish is that, right now, Shame have never sounded better.