Lightning Bolt

The musically deranged Rhode Island duo dubbed Lightning Bolt finally return with the follow-up to their brilliant and critically acclaimed Ride The Skies, and it’s a case of more is more: more musical anarchy, more craziness, more creativity and more heaviness. This unbelievably frantic and complex two-piece (hard to believe that this cacophony is created with just bass and drums) ply a challenging and intricate, but loose, amalgamation of interweaving noise, avant-garde experimentation, brief flirtations with grindcore, free-jazz, musically improvisation and, of course, metal. Comparisons to other noise mongers, such as the Ruins or Melt Banana, are apt, but Lightning Bolt, especially with Wonderful Rainbow, have a tendency to cycle repetitively, but not boringly, building and building on their chaotic conglomerations, instead of delivering them in short, staccato-like bursts of ever-shifting art-driven damage. While the vocals of perpetual motion drummer Brian Chippendale (Brian Gibson is the frenetic bass half of the combo) are still buried in the mix, covered in distortion and sporadic at best, it’s all about the musical bedlam these Brians can create, with Wonderful Rainbow upping the ante both for them and anyone else up to the task.