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Diggedy Derek
Stray Dog
Tend to agree with most people here that this is quite disappointing. Tellingly the straightforward "Steady As She Goes" is one of the best tracks, which would have been a minor aside on a previous album. The sound is muddier and more distant, betraying a slight lethargy in the playing (Todd Trainer particularly seems to be lacking his usual attack).
Mind you "Geniune Lulabelle" and "End Of Radio" are genuinely eerie, with their long silences and in the case of the former, weird tape cut ups. I think there's great emotional depth in these songs (a lot of misanthropy in the former though). This is a weary, diffuse band still capable of the odd striking moment.
In the background to these thoughts I've been pondering "Prayer To God". I've often wondered whether there's supposed to be a heavy irony in that song, mocking the jilted lover (an irony perhaps represented by the exaggerated simplicity of the music). Or whether it's actually really emotionally direct. Perhaps both! I think it toys with songform in an effective way, the self-awareness of the banal lyrics; I was hoping the new album would have more of this, but on the contrary it often feels sketchy and simplistic.
Nonetheless, "End Of Radio" has a certain elegiac classicism to it which almost redeems it.
Mind you "Geniune Lulabelle" and "End Of Radio" are genuinely eerie, with their long silences and in the case of the former, weird tape cut ups. I think there's great emotional depth in these songs (a lot of misanthropy in the former though). This is a weary, diffuse band still capable of the odd striking moment.
In the background to these thoughts I've been pondering "Prayer To God". I've often wondered whether there's supposed to be a heavy irony in that song, mocking the jilted lover (an irony perhaps represented by the exaggerated simplicity of the music). Or whether it's actually really emotionally direct. Perhaps both! I think it toys with songform in an effective way, the self-awareness of the banal lyrics; I was hoping the new album would have more of this, but on the contrary it often feels sketchy and simplistic.
Nonetheless, "End Of Radio" has a certain elegiac classicism to it which almost redeems it.
In the background to these thoughts I've been pondering "Prayer To God". I've often wondered whether there's supposed to be a heavy irony in that song, mocking the jilted lover (an irony perhaps represented by the exaggerated simplicity of the music). Or whether it's actually really emotionally direct. Perhaps both! I think it toys with songform in an effective way, the self-awareness of the banal lyrics; I was hoping the new album would have more of this, but on the contrary it often feels sketchy and simplistic.
Nonetheless, "End Of Radio" has a certain elegiac classicism to it which almost redeems it.
I think its probably the case that he means it but writing and recording a song that emotionally raw knowing you are going to let other people hear it and respond to it, and you'll probably have to perform it again is always going to have a certain amount of irony.
I love the way they play, as if they are both acting out and trying to conceal neurotic ticks, all that scratching, space and aggression, albini's raw throated, shivery singing, locked in by a big macho drum sound.
I don't care if albini is misanthropic or an asshole or whatever as thats part of his appeal to me, he doesn't censor what he writes, even if its something potentially boring or potentially mean spirited and pathetic.
The song that really got me on the last album is mama gina, the way it opens from a friendly anecdote into something much more vulnerable. When my mum was potentially on her deathbed, and my grandad had recently died and i saw shellac live and they performed that song which was the first time i had heard it i was in floods of tears. I still weirdly find it quite hard to listen to, it ticks a nerve.