In Hear This, A.V. Club writers sing the praises of songs they know well—some inspired by a weekly theme and some not, but always songs worth hearing. Twenty years ago this October, Shellac announced ...

Forget the Platonic ideal, Shellac have always aspired to the sardonic ideal. On a ditty cheekily titled “Chick New Wave” — off To All Trains, the noise-rock group’s sixth and final album following ...

Better than: Bawling indie-rock wuss tears as Jeff Mangum sings a Neutral Milk Hotel weeper. For the second year in a row, Chicago post-punk veteran goliaths Shellac graced The Bell House stage for ...

“What if hell is silence?” was the first note I jotted down for this review, upon ending my second playthrough of Shellac’s sixth and final studio album—11 days after singer/guitarist Steve Albini ...

Rokia Traore alert! The brilliant Malian musician has been replaced for Monday’s Millennium Park performance, as scheduled. This is worth noting so Traore fans don’t show up and wonder why a vampire ...

Culled from the band’s sessions at Maida Vale Studios in 1994 and 2004, this double-LP that captures, in great fidelity, the acerbic personality and power of Steve Albini’s trio. Save this story Save ...

Steve Albini (center) with his Shellac bandmates, Bob Weston (front) and Todd Trainer (back) (photo by Masao Nakagami via Flickr) I think most people have a memory of the first time they encountered ...

Bandleader-recording engineer Steve Albini has worked with some pretty weighty acts: Nirvana, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, the Pixies and PJ Harvey among them. But the band he loves to ruminate ...

Albini and vocalist-bassist Bob Weston sing most songs with a smirk. There’s the album’s “How I Wrote How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’ (cock & bull),” whose title takes the piss out of the Fall song from ...