After the triumph of their debut album, Dark Synthetics, Secret Shame return with the self-release of their anticipated new full length, Autonomy, arriving on October 28th, 2022. With the fairly recent Hide ending up being the opener of the upcoming album, the brand new Luxury Bitch becomes the newest offering from the band, and a very much dynamic accompaniment to the album's announcement.
Secret Shame vocalist, Lena Machina, wrote the lyrics of Luxury Bitch about one of her greatest fears; losing loved ones due to the consequences of mental illness.
Secret Shame recorded Autonomy with engineer/producer Alex Farrar at Asheville's Drop of Sun (Wednesday, MJ Lenderman, Animal Collective).
The band set a new degree of intellect and sophistication in the album on many levels, with Lena's lyrical approach taking a more realistic and pragmatic direction, matching the beautiful straightforwardness which comes with the band's music as a whole.
Lena pens a lengthy statement with more insight 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.
“Will you still be there to hold me
When I am trying
When I am losing
And when I lose?”"
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ZR