The Lick
Shame
The riff here doesn't quite resolve — it turns a corner and finds itself back where it started, which is either the point or the joke, and "The Lick" seems comfortable with both interpretations simultaneously. There's a theatricality to the way Shame deploys their post-punk angularity here; the guitar lines are twitchy, almost fidgeting, and the rhythm underneath them has the kinetic nervousness of someone who can't sit still in a waiting room. Steen's vocal delivery tilts toward performance — exaggerated in its diction, vaguely declamatory, as though the lyrics are being read from a podium at an event nobody asked to attend. The song has a self-aware streak, a quality of watching itself be intense and finding something slightly absurd in the watching. That tension — between earnestness and irony, between authentic rage and the comedy of authentic rage — is where Shame live, and "The Lick" is one of their more precise explorations of it. The energy is confrontational without a specific target, aggression looking for an object. It suits late-night venues with low ceilings and beer on the floor, a crowd that arrived wanting to feel something borderline unpleasant and left satisfied.
fast
2010s
fidgeting, angular, self-aware
South London, UK post-punk
Rock, Post-Punk. Post-Punk Revival. defiant, playful. Maintains twitchy confrontational energy throughout, self-awareness rising until earnest aggression and the comedy of that aggression become impossible to separate.. energy 7. fast. danceability 5. valence 4. vocals: declamatory theatrical male tenor, exaggerated diction, vaguely sardonic. production: twitchy angular guitars, kinetic nervous rhythm, minimal ornamentation. texture: fidgeting, angular, self-aware. acousticness 1. era: 2010s. South London, UK post-punk. Late-night low-ceiling venue with beer on the floor when you want to feel something borderline unpleasant and leave satisfied.