Lightning Bolt
Ride the Skies
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Rating: 8.1
Ah, the bass guitar. So overlooked, so underappreciated. Look how it sits,
looking so innocuous, so pure. Its warm, rich tones and angelic harmonics tell
a story of innocence and chastity. But its seductive curves, its smooth
metallic hardware, and its rock-hard, finely crafted neck tell another story.
Oh, how it begs to be perverted! To be slapped, to be twisted, to be warped,
to be forced into making terrible, terrible sounds.
Lightning Bolt bassist Brian Gibson is perfectly in touch with the secret
language of the bass guitar. He knows all its tricks. He knows when it says
it's going to call him, and when it really is going to call him. He
knows that, no matter how harmless it pretends to be, all it wants is to be
fed back through a 32 bajillion-watt amplifier.
At first listen, you may be hard pressed to believe that the squealing,
searing treble tones you're hearing on Ride the Skies are indeed being
produced by a bass guitar. The idea of scorching riffs being played by a bass
seemed to bite the dust when Cliff Burton got squashed by his tour bus. But
on Ride the Skies, Gibson makes his bass do things that would make a
whore blush, resulting in some of the most distinctive tones ever to be
produced from the instrument.
Brian Chippendale, a drummer and vocalist who's known to impress his audiences
with small feats of gymnastics between songs, rounds off the dynamic duo of
Brians that is Lightning Bolt. With a style that's similarly frantic, though
decidedly more conventional than his fellow Brian, Chippendale completes the
musical package nicely, intensifying the furious energy that makes Ride the
Skies so fucking awesome.
Indeed, the palpable energy that permeates Ride the Skies is, in many
ways, Lightning Bolt's greatest asset. Sure, this is instrumental rock, but
it bears none of the sterility of a band like Don Caballero; if this is
math-rock, it's math-rock made by kids who failed math. Add to this the
we-don't-give-a-fuck attitude of the Ramones and the Boredoms' propensity
towards sonic exploration, and Lightning Bolt become a force to reckon with.
While the band's death metal-meets-free jazz sound is maintained consistently
well over the course of the record, there are a few highlights that are
definitely worth mentioning. The album's opener, "Forcefield," begins with
high-pitched, end-heavy squeals that sound like a synthesizer, or maybe a
guitar being run through some heavy effects pedals. But certainly not a
bass. As the song builds, the quasi-electronic bass sounds give way to
terrifying blasts of pure fuzz-- a medium that Lightning Bolt manages to
infuse with distilled energy, making it some of the most convincing noise
ever to come out of Rhode Island.
"13 Monsters" sees Lightning Bolt ripping apart schoolyard chants. Brian
Chippendale's fractured vocals sounding like they're being screamed through a
megaphone that could use a couple of fresh Duracells. On "The Faire Folk,"
Brian Gibson's bass finally sounds like a bass, at least for a little while.
See, one of the great things about Ride the Skies is that you can never
expect one sound to stick around for long-- the songs embody a perfect blend
of cohesiveness and spontaneity that, while often repetitive, manages to never
become dull.
So it seems that Lightning Bolt have managed to do what many would have deemed
impossible: they've created a hard rock album centered around the bass that
doesn't suck. But you know the bass always wanted it. It's been begging for
it all along... secretly. It was only a matter of time before some guys named
Brian would come along with open ears and fulfill its secret desire to squeal
and wail at ear-shattering decibels.
-Matt LeMay