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Shellac: Still Touring, Still A Must-See

Music >

Steve Albini is one of those musicians that will never stop touring. At least, we hope. If you don’t know Albini as the frontman of Shellac, you may know him from an infinite number of other projects: he’s played in bands such as Big Black and Flour, and as a producer has lent his talents to the likes of Nirvana, The Breeders, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, The Pixies, PJ Harvey and countless others.

He takes that wealth of experience and continues, almost 30 years after the start of Big Black, to take it on the road. Their sound has been described as noise rock, math rock and post-hardcore — and certainly, they are all of these things at different points of songs or albums. What separates these guys from the pack (like most of Albini’s bands) is heavy, impossibly fast basslines, brutally honest and morality-blurring lyrical content, and a desire to explore the boundaries of musical composition.

The advantage to having Albini at the helm is a diverse set of musical influences and abilities combined with a refreshing lack of inhibition. That air of pretention? It just makes the music come out better. Trust us.

Plus, their shows are just so much fun. Here they are performing “The End of Radio” at All Tomorrow’s Parties in 2007:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0touDYOFch0]

For good measure, here’s New Number Order. It’s off my favorite Shellac album, 1000 Hurts Professional:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNToOdMSfdA]

Shellac is probably playing somewhere near you, whether we’re ticketing it or not. But we hope you live in one of these cities, in which we have the honor of ticketing their tour stops:

Indianapolis: Monday, September 26 at Radio Radio (21+)
Boise: Monday, October 17 at Visual Arts Collective (21+)
Las Vegas: Wednesday, October 19 at The Beauty Bar with Helen Money (21+)
Portland: Wednesday, October 26 at Holocene (21+)