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To All Trains is a Shellac file. Expectedly, fortunately, clearly, unapologetically, unremarkably a Shellac file. A 180-gram Contact and Go Data—“made with 100% Recyclable Materials which is PVC & Phthalates Free and makes use of 79% much less CO₂ to provide”—Shellac file.
In fact, the essential distinction with this explicit Shellac file, their sixth, is that frontman Steve Albini handed away from a coronary heart assault at age 61, simply 10 days earlier than its launch. It’s onerous to wave away the tragic circumstances clouding it, particularly when it concludes with a observe referred to as “I Don’t Concern Hell” the place Albini delivers the smiling-through-clenched-teeth strains, “One thing one thing one thing when that is over/Leap in my grave just like the arms of a lover/And if there’s a heaven, I hope they’re havin’ enjoyable, ’trigger if there’s a hell I’m gonna know everybody.” But To All Trains will not be an album overcast by loss of life: It’s only one extra instance of how somebody selected to dwell their life.
Main Large Black, Rapeman and, lastly, math-rock trio Shellac, Albini spent 40 years devoted to a singular imaginative and prescient of underground rock music that was no frills, freed from overdubs, constructed with analog instruments and continuously nattering with guitar tone that began shrill and slowly advanced into Morricone metallic. Eminently reliable, Shellac have been the Honda Civic of different rock—modest, dependable, usually inexpensive. You knew the drill. There was a brand new album from time to time, however by no means too usually, every time the temper struck prolific studio engineer Albini, prolific mastering engineer Bob Weston, and dealing drum teacher Todd Coach.
Many of the issues that made Shellac an ideal band in 2000 and 2007 and 2014 have been already firmly bolted into place on their 1994 debut, At Motion Park: the growl ’n’ skwonk, the bludgeoning repetition, the best-sounding drums round. They’re nonetheless right here, too. In contrast to equally minimalism-minded rock bands just like the Ramones, Motörhead, or AC/DC, you by no means needed to fear that Shellac have been going to fall prey to the creeping affect of recent manufacturing methods or style traits. Shellac songs would vacillate between rancorous and caustic (2000’s “Prayer to God“), hypnotic and caustic (2007’s “The Finish of Radio“) or humorous and caustic (2014’s “All of the Surveyors”), however nobody was ever going to file a criticism to the Higher Enterprise Bureau in regards to the substances on the label.
To All Trains naturally walks the identical path and, had circumstances permitted, would doubtless have been appreciated merely as little greater than Shellac’s sixth wonderful file. At a lean 28 minutes, it’s their shortest and most immediately rewardable—no instrumentals and not one of the longform post-rock indulgences of 1998’s Terraform or 2007’s Wonderful Italian Greyhound. Components of the Minutemen have been at all times lurking in Shellac’s music, however they appear particularly pronounced within the groove-spiel of “Chick New Wave,” the sharp pauses of “Days Are Canine” and the pro-labor screed “Scabby the Rat,” which performs like a funnier, much less anxious model of Double Nickels on the Dime’s “West Germany.”
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