Lightning Bolt - Ride The Skies (Album Review)

 

Lightning Bolt - Ride The Skies

(2001)


My copy: 2020 limited reissue on “baby blue sky” vinyl by Thrill Jockey.


Ride The Skies follows and maintains the chaos of Lightning Bolt’s debut album from two years prior. The duo (consisting of two Brians) have a primal talent for the technical side of their instruments alongside a knack for introducing colorful melodic traits to what is otherwise an utterly brutal take on high-octane sludge and noise-rock. 

The wacky noodling and frenzied tapping that opens up “Forcefield” may lead the layman to believe they’re about to listen to a metal album: Brian Chippendale’s drums crash the party to slam in unison with Brian Gibson’s heavy bass, and high pitched syncopations reassure us that this record does not fit under any conventional metal subgenres despite the semi-regular heavy technical displays. 

What makes Lightning Bolt so interesting is how playful their otherwise visceral songs can be: “Saint Jacques” introduces levity with a gleeful melody that pokes fun after a series of drum stampedes and thick basslines. “13 Monsters” is a delightful parody of schoolyard nursery rhymes that builds tension with machine-gun tom fills before the distorted vocals give way to shear chaos and bass arpeggios. 

A consistent theme of Ride The Skies has Gibson begin with shrieking high pitched melodies before slamming down in the lower register alongside the deeper drums like the kick or toms. Chippendale will match the shrill bass tones with his snare, showing the duo have a refined understanding of dynamics. “The Faire Folk” stands out for its wall of clean layered hammer-ons that are reminiscent of The Meat Puppets. With Lightning Bolt, clean tones never last long as the prog side of “The Faire Folk” collapses into distortion and later is dunked into a caldera of fiery sludge. 

“Into The Mist 2” sees more jam session style noodling before a scream drenches the song into a kaleidoscopic jungle of almost nonsensical melodies. The most fun and genius is shown with “Wee One’s Parade” which features a goofy first half in which Gibson uses his bass in attempts to imitate the adolescent vocal chirruping of Chippendale before everything erupts, while still maintaining the silly vocal motifs from the beginning. 

“Rotator” seems to call back to the instrumental psych-noise experiments of Husker Du with one of Chippendale’s most restrained drum performances that prove he is capable of more than just insane fills. There are hard to follow moments and some noodling chaff here and there on Ride The Skies but if this record had the same production quality of say 2019’s Sonic Citadel, it would be that much closer to perfection. The key to Lightning Bolt’s legacy is the marriage of strange, childish fun to destructive noise-rock, which is showcased excellently on Ride The Skies. 

My copy is not rare, and there are standard variants also in circulation currently.

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