Five days ago, Shame were supporting Wunderhorse at London’s Alexandra Palace. Now, they’re announcing their new album ‘Cutthroat’ and preparing for a sold-out gig at Brixton Jamm where they’ll play the new material in its entirety. We’re not sure what the world record is for shifting album campaigns, but ‘under a week’ has got to be up there with the quickest.

Of course, the band’s third album ‘Food for Worms’ came out way back in 2023, but the tour schedule doesn’t seem to have eased up all that much in the two years since. If frontman Charlie Steen is exhausted by the workload, he isn’t showing any signs of it when we call him, spending the first few minutes of our chat wandering around his home until we feel a bit seasick just looking at the video feed.

“It’s good to be back on the horse – and what a stallion!” he says with a grin, finally settling down onto his sofa. “I can confidently say that this is the most excited I’ve been to play an album live. It’s written for the live setting, and there’s supposed to be no fat on it at all, hence the name ‘Cutthroat’. It’s all a bit faster, a bit more optimistic. When it’s not optimistic, it’s scathing. It’s not ‘poor me’ anymore, it’s ‘fuck you’.”

It’s no surprise that Charlie is keen to play the album live. Shame’s shows are where they’ve always thrived, with a live-first approach which has served them well when embarking on ludicrous runs of gigs but has always made it a bit tougher when it comes to sitting down and recording. “I feel like this one took shape in the studio a lot more,” says Charlie. “but when we were touring America, me and Josh [Finerty, Shame’s bassist] would be doing set lists and having to borrow songs from the first album to get the tempo up, and we just got to a point where we said, ‘Why don’t we just write some faster fucking songs?’ That’s definitely reflected on the finished album.

“When I say it took shape in the studio, I specifically mean with John Congleton, who produced it. We’d come in, and the songs would be a bit long, and he would turn around and ask what a section was, and we’d say, ‘Oh, it’s sort of like this’, and he would just reply: ‘Yeah, that fucking sucks’! But that was because he was a fan of the band. He had a no-bullshit approach which we really wanted to lean into, and the result is probably the most energetic album we’ve ever done, and hopefully a very fun one, too.

“In terms of what’s on there lyrically, there’s a lot of crooked characters. Half the album is about paradoxes and these characters who might cheat on their partner or something like that – there’s conflict, and I think everyone’s very drawn to conflict. The other half is just the old-school thing of this insecure, chubby teenage version of myself wanting to tell people to fuck off that I still haven’t managed to let go of. It’s a colourful album, it’s faster, it’s straight to the point.”

That mix of energy and fun is on full display in title-track and first single ‘Cutthroat’, a three-minute distillation of just what makes Shame great. There are tight instrumentals, catchy hooks, and a music video which sees Charlie take on the motorcycle wall of death at a fairground before gyrating in tiny gold shorts (obviously). “It’s a very immediate song,” he says. “And when we’ve been playing it live, it’s gone down really well. We wanted to start with something fast-paced and a bit more provocative, but the next singles are going to have a different vibe to them and I think that rollout is a more interesting way to do it, to show different sides of the album. But, like I say, it’s not supposed to be melancholic. There’s a lot of shit gone wrong at the moment, and for me, the reaction to that isn’t to shrink into myself; it’s to expand out.”

The wall of death motif isn’t just an excuse for Charlie to whizz round and round in circles while topless, either, with the high-stakes fairground attraction also taking centre stage on the album cover. “I wanted it to be something bright and fun,” he explains. “The colour combination of red and yellow to signal danger and attention felt like a good fit – that’s what we’re all about! Also, the music’s faster, there’s a big feeling of movement, and to me, the album sounds like a bit of a joyride. Someone’s got this vehicle, and they’re not too good at doing the gears yet; they’re jumping all over the place, speeding up and slowing down – think of us as inexperienced drivers taking you out for a spin,” he says with a laugh.

“Finding the photo itself was really lucky because a friend just sent it to me, but for a while, I thought we needed another one, so I actually ended up enquiring with the British Library and going to their special vaults in the Indian photography section dating back to 1802. I was there with a microscope looking at old photos because walls of death are big out there, and it was basically a complete waste of time because it turned out everyone just liked the first one, and we didn’t need an alternative - but I had fun at least.”

True to the themes of movement and energy - and presumably to prevent Charlie from having enough spare time to hassle any more national archives - the announcement of ‘Cutthroat’ came paired with a pretty meaty set of European tour dates. They’ll be playing standards like Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam but also heading out on the road less travelled, with Riga, Istanbul and even London getting a look in. “We did an amazing tour in Eastern Europe when we were off-campaign, and it was just so much fun,” he says. “Playing these places that fewer British bands actually get to, like Lithuania or Zagreb, and we wanted to include some of that on this tour, too. We’re stretching it out and going to Istanbul as well, which I’m really excited about. You know us, we like to play - It’s all we do.” ■