TERRAFORM

From the way people talk, you'd think Steve Albini was an extraterrestrial dropped in our midst or an unpredictable chemical agent introduced into an experiment that has grown depressingly stable. Terraform, the latest record from Shellac, takes this notion and blasts off, adding new, albeit alien, growth to a sterile environment (rock music). The seemingly endless first song, "Didn't We Deserve a Look at You the Way You Really Are," features a numbingly repetitive bass and drums figure with a few fluctuations. After a while (don't ask me how long; time doesn't exist here) Albini's guitar makes tentative scratches, like a timid cat wanting to be let in, before the inevitable eruption. Then the whole process begins again. Futuristic? Or maybe just a bizarro world version of "Stranglehold"? Other pieces conceal (in plain sight) references to Iggy, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and The Yardbirds. It's classic rock, all right. But not as we know it. --John Chandler