Forget Plato ideal, Shellac has always aspired to the sardonic ideal. In a sassy “Chick New Wave” title — off To all trains, the noise-rock group's sixth and final album following the recent death of singer-guitarist Steve Albini — we hear Albini hector, “I'm done with dude music… all I care about is chick new wave.” And of course he sings it like the three musicians who wrote and recorded the song aren't dudes whose last album was titled incredible man and that any chick would let him slide by calling her “chick”.
But pushing the envelope has always been Albini's mission, though he's dialed it back in recent years. With his first band, Big Black, he sang about bored arsonists who set themselves on fire and titled an album Songs about fuckingsince Shellac released their third album in the 2000s 1000 It hurts, a song like “Prayer to God,” a post-grunge rumination in which he asks his deity to kill the man who painfully stole his wife (and beat her painlessly), the approach was already Albini lite. With Man Incredible, released a decade ago, he and his bandmates seemed more interested in having fun, but with tongue more firmly in cheek than before. Albini's entire demeanor seemed to have changed over the past five years, as he asked the Internet for an account of the “edgelord's” past behavior. These days, he's all about dark sarcasm without actually hurting people's feelings (joke or not) and that boring arrogance is what defines To all trains.
Albini and singer-bassist Bob Weston sing most of the songs with a smile. There's How I Wrote How I Wrote “Elastic Man” (cock & bull) from the album, whose title goes wild the fall song of 1979 who was taking the piss a comic strip from about 1939. “Before we start, I should explain, the title used to be 'Sauerkraut,'” Weston says on the song. And there's “Scabby the Rat,” a Wipers-like ode to everyone's favorite union mascot and, of course, the LP's opening verse, “Aspire to bronze, but I'll sece for lead” in arena-rock mission, ” Wsod.” Albini and Weston even “high five” each other in “Girl Form Outside,” and they're two men who don't seem like high fiving types.
Perhaps the snark is a test of how carefully you're paying attention, since Shellac have always existed in the middle zone between Serious Art Rock and serving as the preeminent roastmasters of the genre. The Fall and Cheap Trick were equal influences on Albini and possibly his bandmates, but he also enjoyed playing Lenny Bruce on stage.
To all trains captures the serious/non-serious relationship that Shellac made the most of. It's 28 minutes (shorter and funnier than a Young Sheldon) and sounds wonderful, even when streamed from a phone to Bluetooth around-the-ear headphones with low-level tinnitus (Albini would probably wonder if anyone would listen to any music that way, but hey, he recorded and mastered the disc with a (how it translates perfectly even in the worst listening situations.) Musically, the beats drop, drummer Todd Trainer cuts loose, but especially in a free-paced section of “Wednesday” and a bell on “Days Are Dogs,” and they even find a swinging blues groove on “Scrappers,” a song whose lyrics read like they were written by the kings of junk. Hey, it's fun.
The only time the irony crosses the line is in the final song, “I Don't Fear Hell,” in which Albini grits his teeth while singing the lines, “I'll jump into my grave like a lover's arms.” and “If there's a heaven, I hope they're having fun/'Cause if there's a hell, I'll know it All.” The music ebbs and flows and crashes into it like a great sonic storm, but hearing Albini sing those words (and “If I can't take it with me, I'll have it all now” on “Days are Dogs”) a little after his death she feels cruel.
However, if anyone disliked sentimentality (as this and every Shellac song proves) it was Albini. By this measure, To all trains It may not be Shellac's defining statement (sadly, that was every time they played live), but with its growling lyrics and clean sound, the record certainly lives up to the albino ideal.
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