Hypermagic Mountain

Lightning Bolt | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 18, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Load Records
• ASIN: B000B9E2E0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #133,561 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Lightning Bolt's 2003 album Wonderful Rainbow just kept getting bigger and bigger, like a 16-ton amplifier falling out of the noon sky. Its bass tone squashed round heads into wrecked ellipses, and the drums chattered away as if on a chain drive. The album was the opposite of Excedrin, a tension headache in ten movements. Lightning Bolt have done it again with 2005's Hypermagic Mountain. It's hard to say this is accessible; besides, if you did say that, no one would hear it anyway. But bassist Brian Gibson and drummer/default vocalist Brian Chippendal build an addictive structure into the manic pulse of "Captain Caveman," and "Riffwraiths" -- musicians' biggest fear next to unreliable drummers -- sounds like a song's break extended to three explosive minutes. And while Chippendale's vocals on "Birdy" are a distracting non-factor, its rhythmic throb is more relentless than a carbon-arc strobe light with no off switch. None of this is melodic in the traditional sense; Wonderful Rainbow wasn't, either. But Lightning Bolt's music beckons from a more elemental place, as a ferocious distillation of shattered punk fury, dance music release, and the purposely weird. Closer "For the Obsessed" ends abruptly in mid-freak-out, giving the silence that follows its own electricity, and in "Bizarro Zarro Land" Gibson and Chippendale are heavy metal soloists fighting to the death. What makes Hypermagic even more heroic beyond its immediate rhythmic grip is the musicianship, the furious dedication to a hyper, jagged groove. Longer tracks like "Dead Cowboy" and "Mohawk Windmill" build into giant fractals of epic noise, with weird little filigrees stolen from old Yes albums bursting forth from roaring bass guitar and splattering drum rolls. At its most chaotic, Hypermagic Mountain could tear open a wormhole into Comets on Fire's Blue Cathedral. It's clear that Lightning Bolt reach stasis at their noisiest, when they're caught deep in the zone. ~ Johnny Loftus, Rovi

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What's not to like about this?, October 25, 2005

By 

BigBadZep (So Cal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hypermagic Mountain (Audio CD)

The latest release from Lightning Bolt offers everything you've come to expect from the band: the noisiest and most aggressive sounding bass guitar in the business, spastic drumming that fills every sonic nook and cranny and devastating riffs that could wake a person from a coma.

Essentially the guys have managed to maintain their trademark sound, so hardcore fans need not fear. Where this album differs from previous Lightning Blot efforts is in it's production, which feels better. Not only that, but it's denser, at times creating the illusion of a thick unpenetrable wall of sound.

Where this album differs from noise rock acts in general is in it's attitude. Simply put, Hypermagic Mountain has a child-like exuberance about it. With song titles like "2 Morro Morro Land" and "Captain Caveman" it's comparable to a couple of kindergartners hopped up on sugar with an endless supply of energy. Brian Gibson and Brian Chippendale sound like two kids happy to bang away on their instruments just because it's fun. The result is an album that hits the listener at full blast, never slows down, never gets boring or predictable, and is jubilant enough to put a smile on your face.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars more elemental, January 8, 2007

By 

Matthew J. Weaver "ezweave" (Colorado) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hypermagic Mountain (Audio CD)

For many who come across this page, you might be largely unfamiliar with Lightning Bolt's work. These poetic descriptions of "a chainsaw through pudding meets a baseball bat and trash can" are more than a bit misleading.

At its heart, Lightning Bolt is a constant jam: Brian Gibson's fuzzed out, tuned up bass lines over Brian Chippendale's frantic, yet fluid drumming. It isn't just cluttered noise, there is rhythm and melody involved. What you won't find are sing along choruses, just monstrous sounds from unorthodox setups. The bass is tuned up to Cello tuning (in fifths, starting at C) and the drummer doesn't play on a hi hat (he uses a large ride cymbal's bell and a "ping" cymbal). Occasionally (on this album, "Dead Cowboy" is one of the few...) Chippendale sings through a phone receiver mounted in a mask (allows him to play).

While not as "accessible" as their last album, it does a better job of conveying their "magic". This album was done in a more "jam econo" (to borrow a term from the Minutemen) format: recorded on a 2-track DAT in a home studio.

The album's few lyrics touch a little on the political, instead of the tongue-and-cheek allusions of their earlier releases (a combination of the two has basically fueled other noise-rock bands, like The Blood Brothers). If you can understand it, there is a bit of GW Bush skewering... but that sort of brings up an undeniable point about the band: this is the true heartbeat of punk.

It's not a haircut, or 1-4-5 song structures that are co-opted by the mainstream... if anyone forgot other, more idealistic bands (Refused, Fugazi), Lightning Bolt is a bit refreshing. They have been together over ten years and continue to get better and just rock out. They haven't been hemmed in by scene kids or given an inch in artistic vision. Ultimately, the music is as much art as it is music: you don't paint to get famous, you do it because you have to ("...never trust an artist that tells you he has a choice...").

Lightning Bolt goes for the guts, loud and abrasive. If you are at least familiar with the bigger art/noise bands that have come into indie vogue (Test Icicles, The Blood Brothers, and to a lesser extent, DFA) then Lightning Bolt is worth checking out.

If any of this piques your interest, I implore you to buy this album (support the band). At the end of the day, Lightning Bolt is just two guys who are good at what they do, stick to their guns like few others, and do it all with very little ego (that is something unique in music).

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like GOD, October 22, 2005

By 

Arielflight - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hypermagic Mountain (Audio CD)

I don't care if the other 11 tracks sounded like Christopher Cross as long as it had Megaghost on it I'd give it 5 stars still. It attacks your mind, your everyday thinking, it kills brain cells and normal sensitivity to anything else you hear, all will be sweeter after a trip to Hypermagic Mountain.