To All Trains is a Shellac document. Expectedly, fortunately, clearly, unapologetically, unremarkably a Shellac document. 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 document.
In fact, the essential distinction with this explicit Shellac document, 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 exhausting to wave away the tragic circumstances clouding it, particularly when it concludes with a observe referred to as “I Don’t Worry Hell” the place Albini delivers the smiling-through-clenched-teeth traces, “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 shouldn’t be an album overcast by loss of life: It’s only one extra instance of how somebody selected to reside their life.
Main Huge 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 consistently nattering with guitar tone that began shrill and slowly developed into Morricone steel. Eminently reliable, Shellac had been the Honda Civic of other rock—modest, dependable, typically reasonably priced. You knew the drill. There was a brand new album from time to time, however by no means too typically, at any time when the temper struck prolific studio engineer Albini, prolific mastering engineer Bob Weston, and dealing drum teacher Todd Coach.
A lot of the issues that made Shellac an excellent band in 2000 and 2007 and 2014 had 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. Not like equally minimalism-minded rock bands just like the Ramones, Motörhead, or AC/DC, you by no means needed to fear that Shellac had been going to fall prey to the creeping affect of recent manufacturing methods or style developments. 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 seemingly have been appreciated merely as little greater than Shellac’s sixth wonderful document. 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 Glorious Italian Greyhound. Parts of the Minutemen had been all the time lurking in Shellac’s music, however they appear particularly pronounced within the groove-spiel of “Chick New Wave,” the sharp pauses of “Days Are Canines” 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.”
