LIGHTNING BOLT
Ride the Skies (Load Records)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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Now this is what I think of when I think of free jazz, or maybe free rock would be a better term, since it's a rock band lineup of electric guitars, bass, and drums? Total cacophony with a purpose, apparently without structure but all the instruments fall together at just the right moments before running away from each other again. Just amazing ideas behind the songs, too-track two, "Saint Jacques," repeats what sounds like the opening riffs of a song about forty times, as if about to break into some monster rock song but instead falling into the opening chords of some children's song I can't place. "!3 Monsters" could be interpreted as heavy on the drum solos, but even the areas where it's almost all percussion, there's just so much going on that it sounds full enough to disguise itself as a full song. "Into the Mist 2" is disturbing in its disorder, loaded with feedback and amazing percussives (really, throughout this album, the percussion is just spectacular) while "Wee Ones Parade" invokes mental images of monkeys being tortured by guitars and kazoos. All in all, just a wonderful, chaotic, noisy, angry piece of work, great for turning up loud and scaring the shit out of your neighbors with (yeah, I know-I hate ending sentences with prepositions just as much as you hate reading them).

© 2002 - Holly Day