75
by Flytox
At Action Park. I will never forget the sensation of hearing the opening chords for the first time.
In 1994 I had read a review in a German magazine, clumsily translated:
After Steve Albini has delighted us in the recent past with various productions to which he has lent his unmistakably harsh signature, Mr. Big Black now honors us with his new band Shellac. Industrial sounds with a classic line-up rattle with single-minded consistency like the rattling drive of a rusty, delicate iron machine.
Any friend of harmony will search in vain for melodies, because the razor-sharp guitar tears the smallest wounds into the nerves with the familiar bright-toned vehemence, which increase unnoticed over the duration of the album. “At Action Park” is perhaps the album that Helmet should have consistently written if they hadn't developed into an eccentric pop corner. Uncomfortable, frantically disruptive, nervous and calculating.
Above all, “At Action Park” is the uncompromising continuation of the grueling Big Black concept. This, together with Head of David's churning idea, gave us all the noise, industrial hardcore/punk bands like Godflesh and Pitch Shifter, who only have one thing in common with the original definition of this music: to plead for a little more humanity by means of inversion.
I knew I wanted to hear this. When I did, I would love it forever.