At Action Park

At Action Park is the first full-length record by Shellac, released in 1994. The title is unrelated to the infamous New Jersey theme park, Action Park, which closed in 1996 due to numerous fatalities. The drummer, Todd Trainer, came up with the title of the fictional park because it sounded cool.

At Action Park
Studio album by Shellac
Released	October 24, 1994
Recorded	March 1994 Southern Studios, London; Studio Black Box, Noyant la Gravoyere, France
Genre	Post-hardcore math rock noise rock
Length	37:03
Label	Touch and Go
Producer	Shellac
Shellac chronology
At Action Park (1994) The Futurist (1997)

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 the fictional 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

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Chicago Sun-Times	[2]
Chicago Tribune	[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
The Great Rock Discography	6/10[5]
MusicHound	[6]
OndaRock	very favorable[7]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[8]
Sputnikmusic	4/5[9]
Trouser Press	favorable[10]

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".[3]

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.[1] Sputnikmusic called the album "abrasive, arty, nasty, noisy, innovative and unique" going on to call Shellac "proof that there is still massive scope for experimentation and carving out new sounds with a standard guitar, bass, drums lineup in the indie-rock format.[9]

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."[11]

Legacy

Christian Lemach of Whores called At Action Park his favorite noise rock album of all time.[12] 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 [he] looked at music".[13] 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."[14]

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"My Black Ass"	3:00
2.	"Pull the Cup"	4:12
3.	"The Admiral"	2:21
4.	"Crow"	4:47
5.	"Song of the Minerals"	4:24
6.	"A Minute"	3:40
7.	"The Idea of North"	3:42
8.	"Dog and Pony Show"	3:59
9.	"Boche's Dick"	1:38
10.	"Il Porno Star"	5:14
Total length:		37:03

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

1. Deming, Mark. "At Action Park – Shellac". AllMusic. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
2. DeRogatis, Jim (November 20, 1994). "Shellac, 'At Action Park' (Touch & Go)". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on November 18, 2018. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
3. Kot, Greg (October 6, 1994). "Albini's Back". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
4. Larkin, Colin (2009). "Shellac". The Encyclopedia of Popular Music (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-199-72636-1. Retrieved January 8, 2017.
5. Martin C. Strong (1998). The Great Rock Discography (1st ed.). Canongate Books. ISBN 978-0-86241-827-4. Retrieved March 15, 2020.
6. Gary Graff, ed. (1996). MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide (1st ed.). London: Visible Ink Press. ISBN 978-0-7876-1037-1.
7. Salvatore Setola (December 21, 2008). "At Action Park". OndaRock. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
8. Kot, Greg (2004). "Shellac". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. p. 731. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
9. br3ad_man (April 24, 2007). "Shellac – At Action Park". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved September 18, 2018.
10. John Leland; Ira Robbins; Jack Rabid; Deborah Sprague; Yancey Strickler. "Big Black". Trouser Press. Retrieved July 12, 2020. Purely in terms of sonics, At Action Park is less conventional than anything any of the members have been involved with in the past — its pulsing frequencies have more in common with the machine shop than the rock machine — but that doesn’t mean you won’t relish the ear canal damage it’s likely to provoke.
12. "WHORES' TOP 5 NOISE-ROCK ALBUMS". Revolver. October 7, 2013. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
13. Michael (October 16, 2010). "Interviews: Russian Circles". Scene Point Blank. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
14. Nick Hutchings (November 27, 2014). "Sonic Worlds: Clark's Favourite Albums". The Quietus. Retrieved July 14, 2020.