Lightning Bolt - Hypermagic Mountain
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Music CD Cover
Artist: Lightning BoltEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-10-18
Music Label: Load Records
Soundtracks:
- 2 Morro Morro Land
- Captain Caveman
- Birdy
- Riffwraith
- Megaghost
- Magic Mountain
- Dead Cowboy
- Bizarro Zarro Land
- Mohawkwindmill
- Bizarro Bike
- Infinity Farm
- No Rest for the Obsessed
Free Music Notes for Hypermagic Mountain
Free Music Review: more elemental
Hit: 4 Stars
For many who come across this page, you might be largely unfamiliar with Lightning Bolt's work. These poetic descriptions of "a chainsaw through pudding meets a baseball bat and trash can" are more than a bit misleading.
At its heart, Lightning Bolt is a constant jam: Brian Gibson's fuzzed out, tuned up bass lines over Brian Chippendale's frantic, yet fluid drumming. It isn't just cluttered noise, there is rhythm and melody involved. What you won't find are sing along choruses, just monstrous sounds from unorthodox setups. The bass is tuned up to Cello tuning (in fifths, starting at C) and the drummer doesn't play on a hi hat (he uses a large ride cymbal's bell and a "ping" cymbal). Occasionally (on this album, "Dead Cowboy" is one of the few...) Chippendale sings through a phone receiver mounted in a mask (allows him to play).
While not as "accessible" as their last album, it does a better job of conveying their "magic". This album was done in a more "jam econo" (to borrow a term from the Minutemen) format: recorded on a 2-track DAT in a home studio.
The album's few lyrics touch a little on the political, instead of the tongue-and-cheek allusions of their earlier releases (a combination of the two has basically fueled other noise-rock bands, like The Blood Brothers). If you can understand it, there is a bit of GW Bush skewering... but that sort of brings up an undeniable point about the band: this is the true heartbeat of punk.
It's not a haircut, or 1-4-5 song structures that are co-opted by the mainstream... if anyone forgot other, more idealistic bands (Refused, Fugazi), Lightning Bolt is a bit refreshing. They have been together over ten years and continue to get better and just rock out. They haven't been hemmed in by scene kids or given an inch in artistic vision. Ultimately, the music is as much art as it is music: you don't paint to get famous, you do it because you have to ("...never trust an artist that tells you he has a choice...").
Lightning Bolt goes for the guts, loud and abrasive. If you are at least familiar with the bigger art/noise bands that have come into indie vogue (Test Icicles, The Blood Brothers, and to a lesser extent, DFA) then Lightning Bolt is worth checking out.
If any of this piques your interest, I implore you to buy this album (support the band). At the end of the day, Lightning Bolt is just two guys who are good at what they do, stick to their guns like few others, and do it all with very little ego (that is something unique in music).
Hypermagic Mountain Poster
Japanese pressing includes a bonus track. Vine. 2005.Alternative Rock Music CDs
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