March 13--The Providence, R.I., duo Lightning Bolt defies category and even personal identification -- drummer Brian Chippendale is prone to wearing serial-killer masks in concert.
Chippendale and bassist Brian Gibson have built a formidable reputation as a live act, frequently setting up in the middle of the audience and spraying mayhem in all directions. But up till now, the band hasn't quite been able to match that jaw-dropping sense of spectacle and fury on album. Its records can be exhausting listens, buried in mulch, but "Fantasy Empire" (Thrill Jockey) cleans things up a bit without reining in the intensity.
"The Metal East" knocks down the gates, with Chippendale's distorted vocals spewing atop a drums-bass rampage that sounds like the soundtrack to a "Road Warrior" movie. The solo consists of an electronic meltdown. And yet, there's discernible structure and disciplined riffs that unmask the logic behind the kill-kill-kill madness.
Though sometimes categorized as "noise rock," Lightning Bolt also evokes the free-jazz avalanche of Peter Brotzmann, Sonny Sharrock and Ronald Shannon Jackson, and flavors it with dub-reggae reverb and spaciousness. No one sounds quite like them: the scenic blur from a rollercoaster that speeds, slows, climbs and hurtles on "Over the River and Through the Woods," the way the subterranean rumble of "King of My World" re-orders the hierarchy of what are typically rhythm instruments, the tribal menace of "Mythmaster," the buzzing-hive riff that drives "Dream Genie" right off a cliff, the way the hilariously titled "Snow White ( the 7 Dwarves Fans)" suggests a tsunami bringing down a skyscraper. And, just for kicks, there's "Horsepower," a galloping anti-war screed that might draw a grunt of recognition from Motorhead's Lemmy. It's Lightning Bolt's version of a hit single.
'Fantasy Empire'
Lightning Bolt
3.5 stars (out of 4)
greg@gregkot.com
