<p><span><span>- Leaping out of the dark and locking onto the jugular, today’s new release from New York’s revered & relentless industrial icons Uniform, <em>Shame</em>, is an album that both grips & grates the nerves in a full-on assault of terror & force. It’s a frightening & furious album that spits & sparks at your senses and one which, for lovers of intense industrialism at least, is just oh so enjoyable. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Only a few heavy acts have carved out such a distinctive & ugly niche for themselves as Uniform. Their uncompromising melding of industrial, thrash, noise, black metal and no wave has inspired, intimidated & excited the music community, and wrestled preconceptions of what metal can be. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Since <strong>Michael Berdan</strong> and <strong>Ben Greenberg</strong> formed Uniform back in 2013, they’ve begotten music that is immediate, aggressive and primal in form with revelations & confessions plumbed from untold depths. Those treasures are strewn across an unrelenting landscape of impossibly disciplined guitar, bass synth, and drum machine lines. After seven years and three of the most honest & brutal albums of the genre behind them, you’d wonder just how much more Uniform can purge from deep within themselves & their signature, utterly thrashed hardware. <em>Shame</em> makes it clear there is plenty more to scream about and though a few changes to the ritual fundamentals of the band (such as who is behind the characteristic sound of their drums & production this time) <em>Shame </em>pushes Uniform’s sound upwards & outwards into a slightly more refined hellish territory- without straying too far from the pits of boiling rage & electronic wreckage we’ve come to love while frolicking with the band.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span><em>Shame</em> sees Berdan’s vocals continue to circle deeply personal themes of resentment, regret, reflection and addiction like a vulture. He tears offerings from places deeper than other lyricists have the nerve to fossick. It’s more of a personal narrative on this album than his others, with the deliberate decision to include lyrics in the liner notes; a first for an incredibly private musician. “I wanted my words to carry a degree of weight on this record...I am naturally shy and terrified of being misunderstood” says Berdan. There is little risk of his intentions being misconstrued this time around. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>This record marks the debut of <strong>Mike Sharp</strong> in the band, whose intense & inescapable drumming replaces what was possibly the hardest working drum machine in history. The percussive maelstrom Sharp unleashes on the record develops Uniform’s metallic, industrial edge and brings an unmistakable sense of form & weight to the album, which is quite a feat when we consider just how completely heavy Uniform’s sound is already. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Speaking of this signature sound, it’s here <em>Shame</em> explores another first for the band with production duties not handled by master mixer/guitarist Ben Greenberg, but rather by the inimitable <strong>Randall Dunn</strong>, known for his work with some of the other loudest bands in doom (such as <strong>Boris</strong>, <strong>Sunn O))</strong>), <strong>Wolves In The Throne Room</strong> and <strong>Earth</strong>) and who has worked with Greenberg on the haunting OST for the amazing doom-psych-horror mindfuck, <em>Mandy</em>.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Thematically, the album is inspired by the writings of <strong>Raymond Chandler</strong> & <strong>James Ellroy</strong>, episodes of <em>The Twilight Zone</em> and the internal dialogues of characters like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe. The band explains “it focuses on the static state of an antihero as he mulls over his life, just existing in the world.” <em>Shame </em>thrashes its way through an interestingly disparate collection of inspiration, united by Sisyphean themes of self-doubt, spiritual speculation, class warfare, and the persistent looming demons of regrets & life’s ever-present fears & frustrations. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Uniform have perfected the gorgon-like hybrid of digital and analog, electronic and acoustic, synthetic and actual into a dichotic signature of their own. And with this release, deliver a worthy addition to their intimidating canon. <em>Shame </em>is a chaotic & challenging listen, for chaotic & challenging times. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>- Dominique Furphy.</span></span></p>
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