Since breaking up his hugely influential noise band, Big Black, in 1987, Steve Albini has become more famous for his denunciations of the record industry and for his production work – for Nirvana, PJ Harvey, Bush and, most recently, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant – than for his own music. But he has quietly managed to keep a band going, too, and on their second full-length album, Shellac continue to make exceedingly precise music in which silence counts as much as noise, and the rhythms (courtesy of bassist Bob Weston and drummer Todd Trainer) are wound as tight as industrial-strength springs. What surprises on Terraform are the fleeting moments of lyrical beauty: Steve Albini singing about heaven and angels on "This Is a Picture" is infinitely more shocking than the fecessmeared walls of "House Full of Garbage." (RS 783)

IVAN KREILKAMP