Steve Albini, Big Black, Rapeman

Steve Albini (born in 1962 in Pasadena, California, the son of Italian immigrants) was the legendary leader of Big Black and Rapeman, two of the most extreme bands of the 1980s, with which he recorded some of rock music’s masterpieces.

He was a Chicago music critic when, inspired by the Naked Raygun, he decided to self-release the EP Lungs (Ruthless, 1983), recorded a year earlier, using the pseudonym Big Black. What stands out above all is the mood of this hideous music, a depressed, fatalistic mood in keeping with the pessimism that spread among the young of his generation.
Over a spare funk–synth beat from a rhythm box, Albini conducts grotesque sarabandes with minimal variations that recall both Public Image Ltd and Suicide: the industrial dance of assorted metallic rhythms in Live In A Hole, the mini-concert of fuzz and distortion in I Can Be Dead, the more violent, syncopated Crack, and above all the funeral march of Dead Billy, with murderous vocals filtered and reverberated, and chilling lyrics. The accompaniment is practically only the detuned guitar and a humble homemade rhythm box. The sound is rooted in the new wave tradition but saturated with punk-rock neurosis.

For the second EP, Bulldozer (Ruthless, 1984), later combined with the previous one on Hammer Party (Homestead, 1986), Albini recruited a guitarist (Santiago Durango) and a bassist (Pezzati of Naked Raygun) and turned that pseudonym into a band. If the basic forms remain the murderous funk of Pigeon Kill, still on industrial cadences, and the dark robotic ballad with tank–like rhythms of Jump The Climb, Albini also seems intent on experimenting with an innovative use of instruments within conventional harmonic constructs, as shown in the frenzied “slam dance” of Texas, with its drumbeat crescendo, and the relentless tribalism of Cables, with shrieking guitar solos à la Mayo Thompson. A first mature result is I'm A Mess, a kind of demonic voodoobilly in the style of Alan Vega. The lyrics are the most violent, vulgar, criminal, Nazi, racist, and homophobic. The overall tone of Ossianic tribalism and obscene rituals opened new frontiers for the auteur “funk-punk” of Killing Joke.

Their industrial funk solidified on the third EP, Racer-X (Homestead, 1984). Albini completed his maturation in Ugly American, a track with explosive rhythm. Dave Riley had taken over on bass. The last preparatory test was the single Il Duce, dedicated to Mussolini.

The wild and repellent style developed with those EPs became, on the album Atomizer (Homestead, 1985), a deluge of cannon fire. The Big Black project transposed the violence and frenzy of the most devastating hardcore and the terrifying impact of the grimmest and most criminal heavy metal into a stunning chaos of brutal polyrhythms and cacophonic orgies in the vein of Chrome.
In the thundering epilepsy of Jordan Minnesota, the industrial rhythm is propelled to supersonic speed and torn first by Native American war cries and then by lashes of distorted guitar, with sudden time fractures that heighten the atmosphere of suspense. The frenzied gallop of Passing Complexion is achieved with a violent electronic effect repeated psychotically, while Albini rants fiercely and compulsively, the guitar is maniacally tortured, and the rhythm-box machine–guns a second rapid mechanical beat. The dizzying gypsy dance of the guitar in Big Money introduces the hammering refrain of Kerosene. This track, which would remain his masterpiece, is a paranoid and chaotic concentrate of metallic percussion, funky bass lines, tank–like rhythms, shredded megawatts, and deafening feedback that piles up tension and climax until it explodes in the vibrant aluminum–blade trill of the refrain in the style of Joy Division, while Albini screams “Set me on fire” with the tone of a punk Joan of Arc and the guitars shriek in flames of agony—only to start all over again in the most infernal, syncopated clangor.
No less apocalyptic, Bad Houses is shaken by tremendous blows that resound like death knells, and torn by a dark guitar motif. A trail of supersonic–jet feedback launches the obsessive tank–like guitar riff of Fists Of Love, another of the deranged peaks of his plastic rock. In tracks like Stinking Drunk, the most hallucinatory mental states are reproduced by monstrous, colossal riffs hurled against a wall of resonant polyrhythms; a shadowy figure repeated by the bass then polishes off the atmosphere of terror. Albini generates the tracks by layering a few but deafening ideas on how to make noise in rock, each exaggerated with inhuman brutality and in counterpoint with the others. The overwhelming locomotive–like cadence of Bazooka Joe, for example, is reinforced by a series of powerful and disruptive guitar patterns. Albini tends to exploit simple ideas, like feedback and industrial clangor, but he is less barbaric and obvious than he seems: propelling Strange Things are the Glenn Branca-style minimalism of the guitars and handclapping.
The claustrophobic climate created by the music suggests depravity, nihilism, crime. A gallery of brutes, pyromaniacs, butchers, voyeurs makes its way through an equally monstrous tornado of subhuman cacophonies, infernal vocalizations, and primordial tribalisms.

The EP Headache (Touch And Go, 1987) marks a step backward: My Disco, a concerto of cascading detonations, metallic-voiced harangues, and slashes of detuned guitars; Grinder, a sort of monumental heavy metal iterated with minimalist ferocity; and especially Readymen, a frantic-paced ballad immersed in a continuous tornado of guitar distortions—these transform the arduous method into a more banal "manner."

The album Songs About Fucking (Touch And Go, 1987) does not feature a masterpiece like Kerosene. The sound is less polyrhythmic and more abrasive. Dominating is Albini’s shrill, metallic guitar tone. With the dynamite-like impetus toned down, L DOPA, where factory metallurgies merge with thrash punk, and Precious Thing, a frenzied horror-funk, hark back to the English models of Gang Of Four and Public Image Ltd. When that wildly detuned guitar playing intersects with the bass’s ever-prominent and mobile lines, explosive-impact rock and roll bursts forth, as in Colombian Necktie. The bass dominates with its geometric gargles in the industrial dance of Kitty Empire. Percussion instead tears apart Ergot, first with a stilt-samba rhythm and then with the usual end-scale clangor. Again there are devastating half–tank–like cadences in Kasimir, inhumanly detuned riffs in Fish Fry, and apocalyptic Joy Division–like atmospheres in Tiny King Of The Jews. The album testifies to the intention of progressing toward a more reasonable “rap–funk–punk” song form, but Albini decreed the end of the Big Black experience.

Albini wastes no time and forms Rapeman, joining forces with Rey Washam and David Sims of Scratch Acid. Rapeman immediately present themselves as vulgar and degenerate trash-rockers. Having abandoned synthetic rhythms—but not provocative attitudes—Albini relies on the cutting sound of his guitar and coins a personal dissonant version of garage rock on the EP Budd (Touch And Go, 1988). The metallic and lysergic catalepsy (à la Sonic Youth) of Budd, the hyper-dissonant orgiastic bacchanal of Superpussy, and the tank-like wall of distortions of Dutch Courage (always with monumentally frightening violence and murky lyrics screamed at the top of his lungs) actually signal a sound that is more psychological than hooligan-like.

The Rapeman album, Two Nuns And A Pack Mule (Touch And Go, 1989), is still a concerto of deafening metallic detunings on guitar, hammering polyrhythms, and screamed vocals, but polished and abstracted by an intellectual process that negates the Big Black project. From the barbaric tribalism of Kim Gordon and Marmoset through the torrential eruptions of Steak And Black Onions, Upbeat, and Hated Chinese to the biting riffs of Coition Ignition Mission and Radar Love Lizard, one still witnesses another triumph of wild instincts. Chronicling the horrific violence of perverse provincial life and latent holocaust, Albini had forged a folk for the nuclear age, drawing on the disconnected delirium of Nick Cave, the electronic troubadour songs of Alan Vega, the cadaveric melodies of Joy Division, the syncopated pandemonium of the Pop Group, the demented psychedelia of Mayo Thompson, and many other uncompromising, profane, and transgressive voices of rock. But among his sources of inspiration one must certainly also count the speeches of Adolf Hitler, the Wehrmacht panzers, and, more generally, a whole disturbing para-Nazi iconography.

By that point, Steve Albini had withdrawn from the scene in protest against the music industry, limiting himself to work as a producer. In 1994, he returned to the stage at the head of Shellac, alongside Todd Trainer (from Rifle Sport) and Bob Weston (ex-Volcano Suns). The singles Rude Gesture (Touch & Go, 1993), with Billiard Player Song, Uranus, with Doris and Wingwalker, and The Bird Is The Most Popular Finger, with Admiral, immediately show that Albini’s negative intelligence has not changed its opinion of the world, but has found a more rational way to express it. These are tracks, like those of Big Black and Rapeman, whose form is entirely a function of psychological tension—but this time it is an even more inner, deeper, and cryptic function. The album At Action Park (Touch & Go, 1994) is in this sense the most sophisticated work of Albini’s career. Certainly the most claustrophobic.
For anyone who had forgotten the abrasive and catastrophic sound of Big Black, the dissonant guitar attack of Black Ass quickly sets things straight: for about ten seconds, Albini mercilessly crushes the instrument, like the worst of butchers, with a series of apocalyptic seismic shocks. The altered, gasping tone of the ensuing narrative reflects the tone of the entire album: traversed by terrible anguish, blasted by the atrocious spasms of a tormented soul, and drained by a continuous cardio-psychic collapse.
A completely different story is the instrumental Pull The Cup, in which the harshness of the sound is tempered by a linear, driving development reminiscent of progressive rock suites, even featuring a melodic theme emerging from Albini’s awkward wanderings. Similarly, A Minute, with its poorly disguised boogie, compresses all the energy these three rock terrorists are capable of into a more accessible format.

Indeed, it is the masterful “stage” and “director” skills of the Missoula genius that give these tracks their suggestive power, their charge of pathos. Exemplary is how, after a long phase of suspense created by Todd Trainer’s frenzied tribalism, the cascading lashes of guitar tear through Crow, producing an irresistible emotional crescendo, and how a cold minimalism opens the coda, only to explode it into a tangle of dramatic chords and screams. By digging into the pauses and deconstructing the sound in an almost cubist manner, in tracks like Dog And Pony Show, which are chaotic accumulations of musical fragments, Albini manages to produce mental states that are first and foremost hallucinatory states. And isn’t the half-voiced narration of The Idea Of North perhaps more theater than music? I wouldn’t be surprised if Albini composed an opera one day.
A shrill, feverish funky and samba strum serves as an overture for the monotonous riff accompanying the delirium of Song Of The Minerals: a few octaves lower, with a slightly more orderly rhythm, and we would be in the territory of Pere Ubu, showing that there exists a genealogical line of deranged rock.
Admiral and Dog And A Pony Show are the tracks that most directly connect to Albini’s past.
The album closes with another primarily instrumental piece, Il Porno Star, this time a somewhat abstract tribute to the trio’s instrumental skill, undoubtedly worthy of the most creative jamming attempted in rock. It is the track that removes any remaining doubts: Albini’s new sound is far removed from the claustrophobic atmospheres of Big Black and Rapeman, bordering instead on the sound of the new generation of noise artists, whether Unsane or Don Caballero—the important thing is that they make noise, and bad noise.
The trio’s spectacular performance, which revels in increasingly acrobatic jamming, with ever more cyclopean harmonies and ever more apocalyptic chords, also makes this album a testament to the state of the art of rock music in the 1990s.
Everything is deafening, chaotic, excessive, yet at the same time meticulously calculated in its smallest moves; this album hides Albini’s luciferian personality behind a curtain of absolute black. Albini may be the only rock musician capable of conveying the sense of the modern absolute—not the ethereal and metaphysical absolute of Greek philosophers, but the grim and perverse one with which the anxieties of our atheist age contend.
For those who believe music is primarily a metaphor, this album should be promoted as the anthem of the third millennium.

Steve Albini had become a famed producer (at least as far as alternative music goes) but returned to his own music in 1994, forming Shellac with ex-Rifle Sport drummer Todd Trainer and ex-Volcano Suns bassist Bob Weston. The Uranus and Rough Gesture singles served as preludes to the band's debut album At Action Park (Touch & Go).
For anyone who had forgotten the abrasive, catostrophic sound of Big Black, the true progenitors of today's noise-rock, all it will take is the dissonant guitar attack of My Black Ass to put you back in your place. For a dozen seconds, Albini grinds his guitar like a butcher without pity, creating an apocalyptic, seismic shake. The album's tone is pretty much set right here, alternately anguished, punished and on the verge of continuous collapse. Another matter altogether is the instrumental Pull The Cup, which exude sourness from the linear riffing, recalling a bit of prog-rock with a melodic theme that appears on the surface from Albini's graceless movements. A Minute, a badly camouflaged boogie, compresses all the energy of these three rock terrorists into a more accessable format.
It is Albini's skills as "director" that bestows Shellac's music its load of pathos. On Crow, after a long phase of suspense created by Trainer's insane, tribal drumming, the guitar lashes out thereby creating an irresistible crescendo, and seconds later a minimalistic coda explodes in a cluster of chords and terrifying screams. Digging between the pauses, where on songs like Dog And Pony Show the sound is almost cubist, all one can find are messy accumulations of musical fragments. Albini is able to construct mental states that border on hallucinatory.
And what of the recitation-style vocal on The Idea Of North? Doesn't it belong perhaps more to the world of theater than to music? I wouldn't be surprised if Albini one day writes an opera. A feeble, obsessive strumming bordering on samba and funk introduces the monotonous riff that accompanies the delirium of Song Of The Minerals: one octave lower, a rhythm slightly more orderly, and we would be in Pere Ubu territory, testifying to rock's undeniable genealogical heritage.
At Action Park closes with another largely instrumental song, The Porno Star. This time it's a little more abstract, and worthy of jamming more creative than what's normally tried in rock circles. It's this passage that removes the last doubts: Albini's new sound is far from the claustrophobic atmospheres of Big Black and Rapeman. It's more in line with what, at the time, was the new generation of noise-rock purveyors; Unsane, Don Caballero, that "do noise" and "do it loudly." The trio offers spectacular performances, amusing itself with plenty of acrobatic jamming, with harmonies more and more colossal, with chords more and more apocalyptic. It's very much an important album in the context of the '90s post-rock explosion.
All deafening, decomposed, impossible to measure and deliberate even at its slightest moments, At Action Park obscures Albini's personality behind a curtain of absolute black. He's perhaps the only rock musician that could make sense of modern reality, not the ethereal one, or the metaphysical one of the Greek philosophers, but the perverse world colored with our grim anxieties.

The Futurist (1997) is a limited-edition mini-album, conceived as a gift to a group of friends and not as a record product.

But Albini and his partners are distracted by too many projects. The subsequent Terraform (Touch & Go, 1998), recorded over five years, is an uneven, confusing, uncertain work. Certainly it is the record with the least grit and least abrasive of Albini's career. In the almost gothic whispered overture of Didn't We Deserve A Look At You (twelve minutes) the salient fact is the absence of Albini's guitar for almost the entire piece. This Is A Picture, Mouthpiece and Rush Job are all too intellectual experiments in expanding the song form. The long, exhausting psychodrama of House Full Of Garbage offers little that is musical. The record closes paradoxically with one of the most normal songs of Albini's career, Copper.

1000 Hurts (Touch & Go, 2000) does not improve over Terraform, it simply changes perspective. Instead of serving mainstream rock badly performed and dressed up like alternative rock, it indulges in the alternative side with the snobby attitude of a rock star. Carnaveral and Watch Song have the guts of the work of art, but they are merely rehearsals for an avantgarde composition that never materializes. From the abrasive Ghosts to the very dischordant Watch Song, Albini and company masturbate with riffs and tempos that are supposed to be the avantgarde, but that rarely interest anyone other than the players. We've heard this before, but when we heard it the first time it also had feelings. Squirrel Song is the closest they get to a closed statement, but it sounds like an unfinished imitation of Steve Albini's style. Listening to Prayer To God is like watching Picasso paint without ever seeing the final painting.

Abini, Trainer and Weston resurrected Shellac after seven years to record Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch And Go, 2007). The shorter songs are merely routine by three masterful musicians and brains, no matter how intriguing the concept (Steady As She Goes). The two longer ones, The End Of Radio and Genuine Lulabelle (even sung by Albini a cappella) are intensely anomalous studies in alt-counterpoint and post-harmony.

Shellac's self-indulgent (even if brief) Dude Incredible (Touch And Go, 2014) had nothing of the band's greatness, none of their trademark extended workouts. Other than a sort of tribute to Henry Rollins' visceral gnarly menacing hardcore (Dude Incredible), an agonizing Tom Waits-ian skit (Gary), a half-baked punkish instrumental (The People's Microphone), and some Procol Harum-esque syncopated riffing in All The Surveyors, there is little to justify this album.

The double-disc The End Of Radio (2019) collects Shellac's 1994 Peel Session and the 2004 Peel Session.

Big Black's bassist Dave Riley died in december 2019.

Shellac's 28-minute mini-album To All Trains (2024), their first album of new material in a decade, was recorded between November 2017 and March 2022. It suffers from being an haphazard collection, not designed as an organic work. It generally shifts toward more compact and noisier songs, toward a sort of intellectual, ominous, bass-heavy garage-rock. Not coincidentally Girl From Outside sounds like Pere Ubu. The bluesy Scrappers is their best imitation of Captain Beefheart. The skeletan and dissonant I Don’t Fear Hell sounds like something in between John Cale and Einsturzende Neubauten. They all lack good vocals, and that is particularly evident in the muscular and almost explosive songs, such as Tattoos and Chick New Wave. This album doesn't succeed in translating the intensity of Albini's wife into music. Albini was a force of nature, and this album is at best a distant echo of that earth-shaking phenomenon.

Steve Albini died in 2024 at the age of 62.