News: Secret Shame announce their sophomore LP Autonomy & share lead single ‘Luxury Bitch’

Asheville-based dark post-punk band Secret Shame will be self-releasing their second full-length album Autonomy on October 28. To coincide with the announcement, the band are also sharing the album’s searing lead single, ‘Luxury Bitch’.

Lena Machina on ‘Luxury Bitch’: “I wrote the lyrics to ‘Luxury Bitch’ in 2020 during the pandemic when we were still wearing masks at band practice. I was at one of the lowest points in my life where I was struggling with anorexia and bipolar, before I had officially been diagnosed for either, before I ever went to therapy, and before I talked to most anybody in my life about what I was struggling with.

“I’ve always felt that if I opened up to anybody about my trauma or mental illness that it would be too much for them to handle and they would leave me. I’ve always felt like I was making my problems up or being lazy for not getting better. So I’ve spent the majority of my life pretending to be happy and shutting myself off. That is, until things inevitably reach a breaking point and I have a meltdown where I’m spilling the details of every traumatic experience I’ve ever had to the person in my nearest vicinity. A cycle of acting like nothing’s wrong and then emotionally dumping.

“Most things reach a breaking point when you build the pressure for years. When I was 22 I had one person in my life that I felt like I could talk to, and I could see it consistently weighing on them. ‘Luxury Bitch’ is about the biggest fear I had at that time: that I was going to lose them, that my mental illnesses were too much, that they would abandon me before I got better. And to some extent, I did get better. But mental illness is chronic, and I haven’t consistently stayed better since then.

“Something I’ve learned to accept about myself is that there will always be ups and downs. There will always be triggers and days that I can’t get out of bed and days that I can’t get in bed and nothing is going to just dissipate forever. Unfortunately, the person that I was closest to had to leave me because my mental illnesses were too much, and they decided they couldn’t handle my ups and downs anymore. And for a while I thought that nobody could ever love me for who or what I am.

“In any type of relationship, when things get hard it’s easier to walk away. But I learned that when things get hard, there will always be people who walk away. And there will always be people who don’t. And ultimately, even if people have to walk away, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you or they’re out of your life forever. But the thing that I really learned through this entire experience of insecurity, lack of self worth, and mental illness, is that I am worthy of love. And the person that I need to focus the most on loving me is myself.”

Secret Shame recorded Autonomy at Asheville’s Drop of Sun (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Animal Collective) with engineer/producer Alex Farrar. Both musically and lyrically, the band reaches a new level of maturity in the album. On this diverse yet cohesive eleven song record, Lena’s previously-obscure lyrics now directly confront the realities of addiction, body dysmorphia, abuse, and mental illness.

Autonomy: