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Uniform - Shame review




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Band: Uniform
Album: Shame
Release date: September 2020


01. Delco
02. The Shadow Of God's Hand
03. Life In Remission
04. Shame
05. All We've Ever Wanted
06. Dispatches From The Gutter
07. This Won't End Well
08. I Am The Cancer

Industrial/noise rock outfit Uniform unleash their most metal album yet, Shame, so you have no more excuses not to get into them.

Though you still won't see them featured on Metal-Archives anytime soon, you could say the same about a whole lot of metal bands. That's no excuse to dismiss them. Especially no excuse to dismiss Uniform, whose previous body of work and their two collabs with the equally frightening and noisy The Body were enough for us to proceed with their addition to our website. And with an interview. But Shame only further solidifies that decision. And it's not just the drums. But it's also the drums.

Now that I mentioned the drums, I might as well get to them. The most obvious change from previous records is the addition of Mike Sharp on drums, whereas previous Uniform album had either programmed drums, or later drummer Greg Fox of Liturgy and Ex Eye fame. Both of them amazing drummers, but Mike (Sharp, not Berdan) feels more fit for the hardcore part of their sound. So Mike is joining the other aforementioned Mike who does vocals and some electronics, and Ben Greenberg who does pretty much everything else. Including guitars.

And as far as guitars and bass guitars go, this album certainly feels their presence a lot more, as in having clear discernable riffs. A lot of them quite thrashy actually, but I suppose that comes with the hardcore influence. The blend of punk, industrial and noise seems to add more weight on the former than the latter two this time around, but it's not like we don't get crushing industrial noise in songs like "This Won't End Well". The desperate punk vocals of Berdan have always been a staple of Uniform and have actually graced recent Lingua Ignota and Couch Slut records as well, and they're just as effective here. Except that this time around the concept of the album is a bit changed.

In Mike's own words (Berdan, not Sharp): "I was reading a lot of hardboiled fiction and American Southern gothic stuff in tandem with writing this record, which is semi autobiographical. The self loathing introspection and agonizingly flawed nature of the main characters of these books spoke to me and directly informed the way I wanted to frame my story. I was attempting to pull more from Raymond Chandler and Flannery O'Connor than, say... Ray Cappo and Ian MacKaye. In some ways, I wanted this to be thematically the inverse of many hardcore records. Hardcore has a tendency to wag fingers at society at large, without taking any kind of inventory on how they perpetuate the problems they are trying to address. I wanted this record to focus on the source of the poison that feeds into the rest of the world, which so often starts with the self."

Yes, I filled an entire paragraph of my review with an answer from an interview I did. What are you gonna do about it? Shame, while still being as loud and noisy as Uniform have always been, also finds them at their grooviest and most emotionally messy.






Written on 11.09.2020 by Doesn't matter that much to me if you agree with me, as long as you checked the album out.


Comments

Comments: 3   Visited by: 42 users
11.09.2020 - 22:02
Rating: 8
X-Ray Rod
Skandino
Damn. I got over halfway through the album while reading this review (and doing other shit of course) and I really loved it so far. No wonder why, considering I really enjoyed their collaborations with The Body. It does sound pretty metal and groovy but with an emotional edge that captivates me. I will make a note to go deeper in their catalogue. Great review (well, 75% of it haha).
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Written by BloodTears on 19.08.2011 at 18:29
Like you could kiss my ass
Written by Milena on 20.06.2012 at 10:49
Rod, let me love you.
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12.09.2020 - 09:34
Rating: 8
Auntie Sahar
Drone Empress
Really digging this one, great sum up of it. Not sure if I'd call it their best yet but it's definitely their catchiest in a while and I love groovy industrial jamz, so I very well could
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I am the Magician and the Exorcist. I am the axle of the wheel, and the cube in the circle. “Come unto me” is a foolish word: for it is I that go.

~ II. VII
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14.09.2020 - 21:18
Rating: 8
Cynic Metalhead
Paisa Vich Nasha
This sounds grrrreaaaat.
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