Imagine every guilty-pleasure dumb-ass 1970’s heavy metal riff compiled on one record. Imagine those riffs being played by someone at the start of a week long crystal meth bender who picked up his bass rather than guitar and then think what that would sound like if the drummer was Animal from The Muppets. Ladies and gentlemen I give you Lightning Bolt. This record throbs so much it hurts.
Lightning Bolt are a two piece from Providence Rhode Island which initially started as an art school project. The music on Hypermagic Mountain is so overblown, so bloated, so gleefully ridiculous that these origins make a fair bit of sense. The only record I own that comes close to this is Comets on Fire’s Blue Cathedral. Both bands pay homage to the stupid yet strangely compelling monster riffs of the 1970’s. But whereas Blue Cathedral had me giggling in a bean bag, Hypermagic Mountain is chasing me around the room with an axe. Its a relentless record that demands attention. Look I’m a bit of a fan of using my ipod as a source of white noise. I do not do silence well and even at work I always have music playing. It helps me concentrate and I get everything I need to do done faster. Usually Sunn o))), Boris, Cramps, Yellow Swans and the Dead C get me in the zone. There are only two bands that I just can’t listen to at work. The first is Black Dice (all that hyperkinetic electro-fuckery) and the other is Lightning Bolt. Hypermagic Mountain is a record of such refined power that it makes me tense. It’s also a record that has illicted the two classic Doc quotes namely “woah, small doses, small doses” and “They have a focus, it’s narrow, and they do it well, but you just don’t really need much of it.”
I wholeheartedly agree. Hypermagic Mountain only get a spin every so often. I enjoy what they do but, fuck, I don’t need a lot of it.
Ducks Battle Satan 