At Action Park

''At Action Park'' is the debut studio album by American rock band Shellac, released in 1994.

Packaging

The release came in a folded and hand-pressed sleeve which is referred as ''uni-pak style album jacket''. The inner sleeve shows artwork with four microphones, the record sleeve shows an illustration of a fictionalized map of Action Park on one side, and a lengthy medical text ''Resuscitation from apparent death by electric shock'' on the other side (the text was found in an old electronics textbook of Weston's). The Vinyl had inscriptions in the run-out groove of both sides, reading: "Smoking is as natural as breathing. They've been doing it since before I was born... ... which is a shame, because I could have invented it. - Todd Stanford Trainer 1994"

Reception

The album received highly positive reviews on release. Greg Kot wrote that the "music is still punishing in the extreme, with melody subservient to groove and dynamics, and the human voice just another instrument in a maelstrom", going on to write that "Albini uses his guitar more for color and texture rather than as a lead instrument, while bassist Bob Weston and drummer Todd Trainer create a vicious spin-cycle groove, punctuated by thrilling ebbs and leaps in volume and tempo" and called the engineering "extraordinary". In ''Guitar World'', David Grad wrote, "The trio clearly view themselves as craftsmen, partners in a well-oiled machine, with Trainer and Weston generating the rhythmic line of attack with precision while Albini's guitar responds with storm after storm of skittering sonic steel."

Retrospectively, AllMusic's Mark Deming wrote that despite Albini's continued obsession with "sex, violence, and anti-social behavior" from his Big Black days and while "the hard, metallic guitar figures of "Pull the Cup" and "Song of the Minerals" were as uncompromisingly abrasive as ever", the album revealed "a band more musically intelligent and imaginative" than his former band.

In 2012, ''Fact'' ranked it the 18th best album of the 1990s, calling it "brilliantly angular ..Combining Minutemen-esque grooves that feel like they could last forever with spit-riddled, sneering vocals and a storming rhythm section, there are few albums that sound as simultaneously doomed and driven as ''At Action Park''."

Legacy

Christian Lemach of Whores called ''At Action Park'' his favorite noise rock album of all time. Mike Sullivan of Russian Circles cited this album, alongside Fugazi's '' Red Medicine'', as major influences on his guitar-playing, noting that they "literally changed the way elooked at music". Electronic producer Clark included the album among his favorites, noting that "there's almost a techno element to it, it feels blocky, like it's made out of angles rather than anything circular, but still the production's quite warm, it just draws you in."

Track listing

Credits

Personnel:
*Steve Albini – velocity (guitar/vocals)
* Robert S. Weston IV – mass (bass/vocals)
* Todd Trainer – time (drums)

Staff:
* John Loder – driver
* Iain Burgess – chef
*Peter Diemel – coffee
* Corey Rusk – pyrotechnics

References

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Shellac (band) albums
1994 debut albums
Touch and Go Records albums
Albums produced by Steve Albini