Shellac ★★★★
To All Trains
TOUCH AND GO. CD/DL/LP
The news still stings. So do the mightiest power trio.
It is safe to assume Steve Albini – the workhorse of independent records with high fidelity and low bullshit – would have hated a handicap earned by dying, as he did in early May. Let’s be frank, as he’d prefer: what may prove to be Shellac’s last album is not their best, however cinematic such a crescendo seems. It is, however, a perfectly Shellac exit, the power trio rendered with seismic force (those drums!) and endless manoeuvrability (those razorwire riffs!). Albini squares up against, well, whatever he wants with that square-jawed bark: dudes acting tough in their little bands, men broken by mere existence (is that… a nod to Metallica on Wednesday?), the persecutions of the past. It is sentimental and raw, demented and ultimately reaffirming. “Without regrets, we have no progress,” sneers Albini, who worked recently to make public amends for his former edgelord ways. If that’s the last testament of this singular powerhouse, hold it close.