Don't expect
1000 Hurts to open your ears to anything new.
Shellac's sound hasn't developed much. Are they yanking chains by periodically releasing selections from one extremely fruitful session? Only the band and a few tape operators know. No other band sounds like them, which legitimizes this status quo. The jagged scrapes of
Steve Albini's guitar, the somewhat laggard bass from
Bob Weston, and the awkward-yet-steady time keeping of Todd Trainer's drums remain in top form. For what it's worth,
Albini's guitar does seem to gain more grace as the years go on -- just watch out for the ugly jazz fusion lick that ends "Canaveral." Raw, no-frills production? Absence of overdubs? Goofy time signatures? They're all a part of the cauldron. As with the band's previous LPs, you get healthy doses of extended hypnotic doodling, rumbling mid-tempo tantrums, speedy jabs, and a joke or two. And as with any recording featuring the wordsmithery of
Steve Albini, one fights the urge to transcribe the whole damn thing. Often humorous, occasionally unsettling, but always intelligent and thought-provoking,
Albini's lyrics are a bit nastier than the past couple records. "Prayer to God" is no plea for forgiveness or well-wishing; he asks his lord to kill an ex-girlfriend and her accomplice. "Canaveral" dreams of whisking an enemy to outer space, in hopes that he'll become fertilizer. If you know the band's sound, your mind was probably made up prior to reading this. You know what to expect, aside from it not being quite as fantastic as
At Action Park, but certainly better than
Terraform. True to
Shellac form, the record is a sound purchase. Within the domain of atonal, anti-commercial rock & roll, very few are on their level. ~ Andy Kellman