One of my music buying habits is to just jump into a band I've never listened to at any point in their discography. I let fate and the record store decide where I'll begin with Do Make Say Think or, in this case, Shellac.Shellac is an odd case, because I've technically heard a lot of work that Steve Albini has done as a producer--sorry, I mean, recording engineer--but I've never listened to anything he's personally done. I like the idea of his bands and the descriptions I've read, but never heard them.
Excellent Italian Greyhound is their latest album, and I could find a copy on vinyl, so here I am. Awesomely enough, the band includes a CD copy in the vinyl sleeve, though it's kind of a "fuck you" move because it's just a blank CD. So, then, I'll say "fuck you" back and listen to it on CD first.
The album opens with the spoken word driven and lengthy 'The End of Radio.' This is kind of a weird way to start an album. It reminds me a lot of Slint's Spiderland in terms of the dynamics, loud/quite/loud sections, and the plodding, exacting nature of the repetitive guitar. Obviously Steve Albini worked with Slint on their first album, Tweez and has been quite vocal about his love for Spiderland ever since its release, so the comparison makes sense. The song is, funnily enough, exactly what the title implies--someone broadcasting the last radio broadcast ever.
'Steady As She Goes' is not a cover of that Raconteurs song. Rather it's a pretty basic angry punk-ish song. Steve Albini (I'm assuming he's the singer on this song, anyway) yells the lyrics, but not in a death metal/screamo kind of way, thankfully. One thing I can say about this album thus far: it sounds as good as you'd expect from a notoriously finicky engineer. The instruments all sound clean and seperated and the vocals are mixed a bit lower than everything else. Which is the standard Albini aesthetic, and in Shellac's case, it certainly works.
'Be Prepared' is a math rocky "we have chops" workout. I've been thinking about why I don't know if I like or dislike this song, and I realize it's because this album doesn't make sense to me yet. It's going to take awhile to get into their way of doing things, because so far the songs are untraditional insofar as they don't have typical structures.
'Elephant' makes me think of Fugazi. The vocals remind me a bit of Ian MacKaye, especially the "repeat the lie" bit. So, then, Shellac sound like Slint mixed with Fugazi. Interesting.
'Genuine Lulabelle' is a long one. 9 minutes that trade between formless guitar minimalism, crunchy full band riffing, spoken word, and a strange dialogue between characters that reminds me of something off a Frank Zappa album. It actually reminds me of something off Gastr Del Sol's Crookt, Crackt, or Fly.
'Kittypants' is pretty damn good. Reminds me of what Slint might have released if they stayed together and released an all instrumental pop album. A nice, short instrumental that cleanses the palette.
'Boycott' is another angry, punkish song that reminds me of Fugazi. I love that pretty, upper register guitar line.
'Paco' is another instrumental, though it's longer and more varied than 'Kittypants.' Again, the closest comparison I can come up with is Slint, although faster and with more variety than that implies. One song from the end, I have to say that this album isn't as challenging and noisy as I imagined. Maybe I give too much credit to Albini for being difficult or experimental. But maybe I'm drawing too much of a conclusion from this, my sole listening experience.
'Spoke', the album closer, is an angry, screamed punkish number that doesn't remind me of Fugazi for once. It does, however, remind me of three dudes thinking it would be funny if they wrote a song where they could yell and scream a bunch of shit of no consequence and have mindless, fun backing music to pound out. And that's probably what happened, too.
So, my first Shellac experience. I don't feel especially positive or negative about the band so far. They certainly don't sound like much of anything I've heard before, except Slint and Fugazi, two bands that Shellac are at least familiar with, if not good friends with. I will say that it wasn't quite what I expect--a pleasant surprise.
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