If I would be forced to pick a band that's new to me, that I have embraced and learned to love through time, a band carrying simple pop tracks and beautiful melodies, Lightning Bolt would sure as hell not be it.
I love them, I do. I cannot remember how I got on the course, but after hearing this track I fell on the bandwagon and immediately sent for their latest album, "Hypermagic Mountain", using Dotshop.se. Get their albums from here.
The band consists of two guys named Brian, Chippendale and Gibson, both grown up in Providence, USA. They say the musical climate there is excellent which might very well have accounted for the results; in Stockholm, we have a similar place, called Fryshuset, which by the time I was rehearsing there with my band (some 10 years ago) the inspiration came from the mold and perspiration seeping from the walls, meeting some of the more odd people there and the fact that I couldn't play guitar to save my life.
But you know, if I'd heard Lightning Bolt by then, I probably would have taken a turn in terms of how I was playing.
Some nasty people have simply said that LB's production is weak...death to the infidels! This is love in a hardcore way! Check out how close they are to their audience, refusing to stand on a stage, bringing out songs that you might think have to be played by at least three people in order to be playable! And does singing Brian have several masks? Will you get deaf from attending one of their gigs? Why does everybody who's there live look blissed out and like they're cut into the pics from a sunny vacation commercial? I cannot answer these questions, but I will say this: I missed out on the recent sale of tickets to see Nine Inch Nails, but I couldn't really bother; if Lightning Bolt were coming, though, and I was as poor as I am currently, I would f-ing collect cans to afford to see them.
As usual, the track will be a a mere memory in a week, so listen now, while you're in a meeting or in an Internet café! LOUDer!