An excellent return to form by the all powerful Steve Albini, producer of countless milestone albums, this time with his own band Shellac, which has been silent since 2000’s 1000 Hurts. It’s been well worth the wait as “Excellent Italian Greyhound” is aesthetically and musically sublime.

A few days ago I read this at Can you see the sunset

Today the information overload is 1000x worse. It is great that there are so many individuals that can get their music heard by anyone who will listen, but all the mystery is gone. No stone is left unturned (…) reminds me of back when music was mysterious and you could spend hours pouring over the liner notes of your favorite album. ()

I also think sometimes that I can’t enjoy some music thoroughly while searching for new things all the time, I try to balance it with a mental algorithm on my own and sometimes stop myself to listen to what I got. Shellac is a band that’s in some ways against digitalization, against PR, against promotion and against music industry. “Shellac do not have a “fixed fee” for performances like most bands, preferring instead to take the door sales minus expenses such as promotion, running costs and venue fees. They have also been known to ask venues to remove ticket charges, as they deem them unnecessary.” and sometimes I think of sharing their neo-Luddite stance against the modern world. But then again don’t we all have some love/hate relationship with the modern life?

Anyways, Shellac has perfected their unique blend of fuck-off attitude a la early Helmet, Fugazi, Fudge Tunnel, Nation of Ulysses, Melvins, Sonic Youth and discordant barebone midtempo punk rock crunch. Excellent Italian Greyhound sounds like watching a black & white documentary and being enraged inside, about the system or the hostile environment modernization has caused. Reality seems bitter but at least it’s real and not fabricated.

Shellac – Steady as she Goes
Shellac – kittypants