Uniform - Shame (2020)

After drummer Greg Fox added a visceral attack to Uniform's third album, 2018's The Long Walk, Michael Berdan and Ben Greenberg worked with Mike Sharp, a Texas musician and sound designer who has played in hardcore bands such as the Impalers and Trap Them, as well as psych rock collective Sungod. Additionally, Uniform handed mixing duties to renowned engineer and musician Randall Dunn, rather than have Greenberg mix Shame. The result is just as massive and forceful as the group's previous records, but it sounds significantly clearer and more pronounced. It's still heavy, bracing, and panic-stricken, however, whether or not one attempts to pay attention to Berdan's lyrics, which relate to the point of view of an antihero. He filters his anxiety and fear of being misunderstood through a literary and cinematic lens, and addresses being bullied as a youth and constantly being plagued with self-doubt throughout his life. The music is just as cathartic as the lyrics, snapping between various shades of heavy, electronically charged rock. "The Shadow of God's Hand" starts out slow and churning, riddled with crackling feedback, before everything gets revved up and thrashy, with a sharp electronic tone piercing the listener's eardrums at one point. "Life in Remission" starts out with a rapid, suffocating rhythm similar to black metal before being washed out by waves of droning static and explosive thuds. "This Won't End Well" begins with a brief bit of intense pummeling before breaking down into sludgy pounding, while the vocals are laced with psychedelic effects. The devastating eight-minute closer "I Am the Cancer" begins as a torrent of black metal and thrash riffs before switching to a remorseful procession, ending up with Berdan howling "God will not love you forever." Like other Uniform records, Shame is bleak and chaotic, but feels unmistakably honest and true to life.