1000 Hurts

Rock has become the preserve of the nice guy. The rock trio, once synonymous with the emotive and dynamic primal noise of the likes of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Husker Du and Nirvana, is now populated by safe, catchy indie-by-numbers popsters such as Stereophonics.

For the uninitiated, Shellac are Bob Weston, Todd Trainer and Steve Albini. Two thirds of this outfit were the production and engineering team for Nirvana’s In Utero, until David Geffen shitted in his pants upon hearing the stark, relentless noisescapes and hired REM polish-up man Scott Litt to remix the singles ‘Heart Shaped Box’ and ‘All Apologies’.

Apparently, 1000 Hurts took years to complete, which is not surprising, as these taut soudscapes sound like they took time to gestate into songs that slice straight into all the extreme, psychotic elements of the human psyche.

Opening salvo, ‘Prayer To God’, is one of the hardest slices of pure hardcore to emerge kicking and screaming out of any recording studio in the world ever. The mood of hateful hurt is

relentlessly pursued via breathtakingingly basic drum, bass and guitar arrangements.

‘Mama’ Gina,’ as performed on Shellac’s debut Irish tour a few years back, buzzes with confusion and bites with regret, as Albini’s guitar scrapes become more and more mutated by the second. ‘QRJ’ and ‘Canaveral’ are rather flat and insipid noisenik ditties in comparison to the sheer genius showcased elsewhere, and the closing clumsiness of ‘The Watch Song’ is rather lame.

These little gripes aside, over three quarters of this album is essential listening for anyone who thinks guitar music isn’t sonically challenging any more.

Shellac howl on with all the harrowing pain of an open wound that won’t heal.