Cameron's Record Reviews #1: Hypermagic Mountain by Lightning Bolt

Band: Lightning Bolt

Album: Hypermagic Mountain
Released: October 18, 2005 on Load Records
Tracks: 12

Holy sweet goddamn this album will wreck you. Have you ever fallen into a machine which was constructed out of several hundred tons of disassembled mining equipment and built by a sadistic mad scientist? Yeah, well, pretty much the same thing.

The album starts out with what sounds like the last two seconds of a song, followed by a banjo-string-on-an-electric-bass solo, followed by a swift kick to the teeth.

Alright, that's not true, the first track, "2Morrow Morrow Land" isn't a high point, but it certainly does nothing to ease you into the album; It says in a maniacal shout, "IT'S BEGUN." Well, a maniacal shout into a telephone receiver which is then run though distortion and echo. But you know.

Lightning Bolt then hands us three of the hardest-hitting noise rock jams ever created. If they did this by the ocean, they would wake Cthulhu. "Captain Caveman," "Birdy," and "Riff Wraiths" feel like punches to the face. That's really what makes this album so goddamned fantastic - you don't hear a whole lot, but you feel it for sure. Every bass note that goes through the speakers feels like a your heart is bursting out of your chest, all the frantic drumming feels like you're caught naked in a hailstorm.

It's fucking relentless. You get a minute-long break at the beginning of of "Mega Ghost" with some ethereal vocals, but this is mercilessly shattered by the crash of cymbals and the crack of snare, and from there it's a long 40 minutes until "Infinity Farm."

This album is long, noisy, exhausting, and fucking incredible.

Favorite Tracks: "Captain Caveman," "Birdy," "Mega Ghost"