3 out of 5

Label: Touch and Go

Producer: Shellac

Aright, it’s cool, bring on the shit for my rating this album a three.  I know you care, even though it’s almost – good christmas – twenty years after its release.

So here’s the thing: sometimes I crave Shellac.  They have a very particular sound that tons of bands have dug on but never been able to exactly match, even when it exactly matches.  I’m not claiming to know how that happens, but it is what it is.  So when you want to listen to Shellac, you put them on and no other.  This could very well be a case of ‘what you heard first,’ ’cause ‘1000 Hurts’ was my first Shellac record, and it’s the one I dig on and return to most.  Songs from that get stuck in my head, and though my main issue with the band happens on that album as well – a samey-ness to the rollicking bass and clipped guitar riffs that makes many, many passages of songs sound rather familiar – the pacing of the quick and slow tracks and a slight feeling of being more band-based than instrument based makes it an excellent album, only getting tired once it gets to the end.

Any given track on ‘Action Park’ kicks ass.  It feels more direct than most things that would follow in Shellac’s career, but that’s that instrument based feeling – like the song is suddenly focused on punching you with this beat, this chord.  Singing is delayed until the playing is out of the way, and sometimes we just get stuck on a snorting riff for a while.  But you know what gets stuck in my head here?  ‘My Black Ass,’ track one.  I’ve listened to this album countless times, but it’s the only song that ever sticks.  It hits hard and fast, and then ‘Pull the Cup’ follows with a sweet sound that feels like it’s building to something great… that never gets there.  And then the next few tracks repeat the ‘Black Ass’ template, and after the one differently paced track – ‘The Idea of North,’ – which is, again, a great song taken individually but its moodiness gets lost when dropped after the midway point of the album – after that I swear the initial riff from the first couple tracks is used again.  Perhaps purposefully.  This can be a technique, and I can see it as an Albini thing… I mean, The Marshes’ ‘Recluse’ re-uses the same goddamn riff for every song but I love that album, because somehow each track becomes its own thing… and I just don’t get that from ‘Park’.  I love it when I’m listening to it, and it totally fulfills the need for a Shellac song, but it doesn’t feel quite as planned as ‘1000,’ coming across more as “I’ve got an idea for a couple tracks and let’s see what else happens.”   The band is absolutely talented enough to make this work, and I bet if 1994 rolled back around and this was my first exposure to the band I’d be punching my alternate future 3-star-rating self in the teeth, but… uh… I’ve done my bit to justify this.

In summary: an awesome song, an awesome riff, mostly repeated for forty minutes.  Thankfully it’s a great song, though.