AP Track Review
Gift by Asheville, North Carolina's Secret Shame is a cagey punk driven foray into dark atmospheres. The music with elements of what sounds like surf punk (to me), goth punk, noise and death rock and even a 60's kind of sad pop (sock hop punk) are all combined in a big vast way. The big hall sound gives the strident guitars and commanding bass and drums a dreamy sound and the reverb and ennui drenched vox add a surreal, cinematic tone like dreams in a gothic horror movie. Lena's vocal character is beautiful and laced with a more beautiful pain pushing out lyrics that tell stories you want to inhabit.
In another light I’ll see you go dark
Noose around your neck to catch me off guard
Another gift from creator, that feeds your head
Maybe he was possessed
No, it was a gift
A gift from God that makes him alive
That seizes her light
And makes him a man
The drugs that make you work-
She’ll think nothing of it, force her and she’ll love it
Gift is the first track off their "Dark Synthetics" that dropped on September 6th.
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Robb Donker
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM- PRESS NOTES:
Some people like to make music -- others have to. That’s how Lena, the singer of Asheville deathrock band Secret Shame, explains the band’s 2016 beginnings: “If I couldn’t sing or play music, I would tear my skin off.” That same clenching expression comes through on the band’s emotionally driven debut full-length Dark Synthetics. Lena’s voice cuts through the band’s dark, atmospheric sound carried by lyrics centered around issues of domestic abuse, mental health, and political frustration. Proudly, the band has never shied away from the often difficult-to-discuss issues that often pollute exhausting relationships and damaged social systems, cemented in their foundation on the band’s self-titled 2017 EP.
While Nathan (drums), Matthew (bass), and Billie (guitar) thunder through songs with pulsing rhythms, Ryynikki (lead guitar) pierces through with sharp lead melodies that glue together the band’s synthesized, galactic punk sound. Secret Shame resurrects a similar moody deathrock style that swept through the 80s, as Lena’s vocals cut through dark atmospheres created by the band’s gigantic, reverb-soaked sound, building to cathartic lyrical moments.
Secret Shame’s 2019 full-length Dark Synthetics, recorded in January 2019 at The Ward in Richmond, VA with engineer Ricky Olson, sees the band performing at its highest level, settling into a solidified five-piece lineup with Ryynikki (they/them), Nathan (he/him), Matthew (he/him) and Billie (they/she) backing Lena’s (she/her) exorcising vocal performance. “There's not a single word I didn’t write from the pit of my stomach,” Lena says. “The entire record- even though the song dynamics change- has one solid emotion, which is the struggle of inner turmoil and being trapped inside yourself. It’s the feeling of holding a scream in the back of your throat.”
But Secret Shame doesn’t hold back, letting loose by creating sonically driven landscapes painted with colorfully powerful lyrics, bouncing from both chaotic and calm moments that are equally destructive in message. Secret Shame create a space for you to get lost in -- the kind where you’re free to contemplate and relate, taking each song’s essence and shaping it to fit your own life and experience. It’s a gothic punk sound not just to revel in, but to think critically through -- something only carefully crafted music can do. “Some people avoid writing music that puts them in a vulnerable place, but that’s the place I’m trying to get into,” Lena says. “That’s where you’re your most raw and hopefully people will be able to experience it through you. There’s nothing else like it.”
Secret Shame’s debut full-length Dark Synthetics will be available on CD and on tape via Portrayal of Guilt Records.
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