For something so simple and direct, Lightning Bolt's music is pretty genre-straddling. Ask a fan for a description and you'll likely hear more about what they do-- play loud, fast, and insanely repetitive-- than how they sound. Not so long ago "loud and fast" meant punk, but now those words could just as easily mean noise, prog, metal, grunge, lo-fi, even techno. Lightning Bolt's chugging riffs, splattering beats, and amplified overload contain all those styles. Often the only difference between their songs is which label fits a little more than the others.
Measured with that ruler, Earthly Delights is Lightning Bolt's metal album. We're talking degrees here-- the duo of bassist Brian Gibson and drummer Brian Chippendale still prioritize speed and volume over genre. But overall, most tracks center around the kind of growling chords and monolithic beats metal is built on. Even the more amorphous songs have a distinct gravitational pull. And as with the best metal, the simple pound can be kinda catchy, driving into your brain until it's stuck there.
In other words, Earthly Delights is no grand departure. But drastic change wouldn't fit this band. The whole point of their music is hypnotic repetition, magical moments sprouting from endless reiterations. They could stretch out further, but they'd likely lose access to those mini-epiphanies. Besides, there are enough bands rejecting their pasts in the name of diversity. Lightning Bolt are happy to grind out an eternal present, and few can dig deep into a moment quite like them.
This time around the duo's musical shovel seems larger, heavier, a bit more able to move earth. Gibson's riffs in particular shoot straight for the gut. He's less enamored of noodly high-end runs-- though he doesn't abandon them-- and more interested in cramming thick chords into Chippendale's frantic beats. The brutal churn of opener "Sound Guardians" sounds like a pile of sped-up Motörhead albums. "Nation of Boar" is all low-end stomp, the kind you can imagine the duo flopping some newly-grown hair to. Even on "Funny Farm", about half of which is a trebly loop, they become invigorated when they shift back into heavy chug.
Earthly Delights isn't all metal slam. The swinging "Colossus" is practically a ballad; "Flooded Chamber" busts ears with whines and abrasions; and the most intriguing track, "S.O.S.", evokes the darkest noise-rock moments of Japanese bands like Fushitsusha and Gerogerigegege. Throughout, Chippendale's humming vocal lines are sneakily melodic, perhaps a product of similar explorations he's done recently with his solo project Black Pus.
Still, of all the Lightning Bolt albums so far, this is the one most likely to wear you out with unrelenting heaviness and elongated mega-jamming. Appropriately enough, the album ends with its longest track, the 12-minute endurance test "Transmissionary". By the end whatever fatigue you feel could either be the satisfaction of a hard workout or the strain of a tedious task. But it probably doesn't matter to Lightning Bolt-- they're more concerned with testing their own limits than yours, and Earthly Delights shows their career is less a series of sprints than one exhilarating marathon.
