Shellac
The Rude Gesture (A Pictorial History)

THE REVIEW

I cannot help but think that making an album is somewhat like letting oneself be photographed, letting oneself be printed in a Polaroid, a witness to what is and what will always be. Like a Polaroid, nothing more, nothing less, with the date and the intentions that determined it written on it.

I imagine this Polaroid with a ray of light crossing the lens, the three shadowed figures with crossed arms staring at you, the large eyeglasses emerging from nowhere. Green all around while the sky, clear on any given afternoon, awaits rest with a few dark clouds as company... below, on the large border, it reads: "10/10/93 - We are Shellac... Fuck you, it's only for us".

 "The Rude Gesture (A Pictorial History)" is the first document proving the existence of Shellac and Albini's desire to start walking again in a world he rejects... perhaps doing it his way. This splendid seven-inch is to "At Action Park" what a sharp aphorism is to a coming-of-age novel.

The style is already well defined, just like their desire to exist only for themselves without jolts or second thoughts; the production is perhaps one of Albini's most imprecise and mediocre. Everything might have led one to think, at the moment of listening, of something entirely negligible were it not for the final blow... "Billiard Player Song": the Pop song that had never emerged from the darkness of his moods. A single riff in major until the end on which the bass starts its run... the drums stutter... the voice hidden by everything else like a small man, a child, crushed by what he is not... that little voice so natural that seems to speak to you who listen... that certain something blasted into pulsating eardrums... I don't even know what this song talks about, but I am convinced it is about me.