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-   -   Lightning Bolt: Sucky? (http://www.sonicyouth.com/gossip/showthread.php?t=3797)

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
Lightning Bolt are one of the few bands who know how to use noise in an interesting way. The sound is very full. Chippendale is a wonderful drummer and Gibson can play bass very uniquely (due to his set up).
Wonderful Rainbow is one of the best noise albums made.


I really disagree...The album that I heard was one of the least interesting uses of noise I have ever encountered....it was as if they were trying to take noise to a new level and only succeeded in being completely offensive.

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:04 PM

They're not trying to take noise to a new level. They're playing their instruments, creating noise, just trying to have fun. They're not meant to be anything but a very fun, entertaining band, and they succeed at that.
Their noise is defintely not offensive (except the s/t).

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
They're not trying to take noise to a new level. They're playing their instruments, creating noise, just trying to have fun. They're not meant to be anything but a very fun, entertaining band, and they succede at that.
Their noise is defintely not offensive (except the s/t).


They seem to take "annoying" to an almost offensive level for me...in that they are obviously pushing the limits of loud noise + repetition, without any melodic sensibility to redeem it or give it substance....the little vocals there are seem to be high-pitched squealing that is indecipherable, and the guitars drown it out.....It's like this band decided to take all the wrong elements and put them together.

drrrtyboots 07.05.2006 11:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
They seem to take "annoying" to an almost offensive level for me...in that they are obviously pushing the limits of loud noise + repetition, without any melodic sensibility to redeem it or give it substance....the little vocals there are seem to be high-pitched squealing that is indecipherable, and the guitars drown it out.....It's like this band decided to take all the wrong elements and put them together.

No, the lyrics aren't meant to be deciphered really, they're just short little sayings that chippendale writes minus Dead Cowboy. They don't just repeat themselves, you're backing up your opinion based on like 2 or 3 songs off of one fucking album. They take a lot of different elements and put them together well for a drum and bass duo.

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drrrtyboots
No, the lyrics aren't meant to be deciphered really, they're just short little sayings that chippendale writes minus Dead Cowboy. They don't just repeat themselves, you're backing up your opinion based on like 2 or 3 songs off of one fucking album. They take a lot of different elements and put them together well for a drum and bass duo.


I heard the whole album. Obviously I can't comment on the whole catalogue.

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:14 PM

There is 'melodic sensiblity' in their music, it's what makes up the 'annoying' repition. The lyrics are meant to be indecipherable. In fact, I believe that the vocals are used as an instrument in the music and not meant to be focused on.
But you can't diss the band. You only have enough experience with them to critique one album, not the entire band. In fact, Wonderful Rainbow and Hypermagic Mountain are quite different.

drrrtyboots 07.05.2006 11:16 PM

But you're making an opinion about the band. If you had said " I don't like Wonderful Rainbow by Lightning Bolt because of the pointless repitition blah blah etc." I think I would understand your point of view better.

atari 2600 07.05.2006 11:16 PM

It's the same thing with most music. Songs are composed of a few sections. With Lightning Bolt, this formula is sonicly distilled into more readily apparent cycles of repetition, that's all. It's a disorienting, challenging sense of "melody" based on the few riffs of the song. The result is a visceral bombast, hence the references to the live shows. & the push of the homegrown cyberpunk dynamics are for real. They are put together with some discernable intelligence & sense of aesthetic. One can hear that they've arrived at their sound not by honing a craft, but by painstaking loving their art over time. There's no Nickelbacking here with some producer creating heaviness out of yesterday's poop.

But...consider that, say, Talking Heads, wrote lots of songs with only one chord & many of the are really, in actuality, far heavier & more intense (chuckle if you like) than anything Lightning Bolt will ever produce.
Two different ways of seeing the creativity expressed with a somewhat limited palette I suppose, based on taste, you might say. One probably hasn't heard the right Talking Heads if they disagree, but I'm not trying to make this a versus thread, especailly since they sound nothing alike.

drrrtyboots 07.05.2006 11:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
There is 'melodic sensiblity' in their music, it's what makes up the 'annoying' repition. The lyrics are meant to be indecipherable. In fact, I believe that the vocals are used as an instrument in the music and not meant to be focused on.
But you can't diss the band. You only have enough experience with them to critique one album, not the entire band. In fact, Wonderful Rainbow and Hypermagic Mountain are quite different.

Very different. Infact, Hypermagic is their "metal" album by most terms.

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:18 PM

All I can say is that I hope Wonderful Rainbow doesn't define the future of music in any way. Although in the past I have been horrified by senseless music and learned to accept it...there is a general "dumbing down" of music, in the same way that language and grammar degenerate, and the mistakes become accepted usage.

drrrtyboots 07.05.2006 11:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
All I can say is that I hope Wonderful Rainbow doesn't define the future of music in any way. Although in the past I have been horrified by senseless music and learned to accept it...there is a general "dumbing down" of music, in the same way that language and grammar degenerate, and the mistakes become accepted usage.

Lightning Bolt's music is dumb in no way at all, if you could play drums anywhere close to how well chippendale does or bass to the level that gibson does then you could call them whatever you'd want and have somewhat of a point. And it's one band, one that most people have no idea about so how could they define the future of music? Noise in general is a fairly new genre and probably will pass like other genre phases, or at least a lot of the glitch noise stuff going on.

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:22 PM

Wonderful Rainbow will not define the future of music.
I don't believe that there is a 'dumbing down' of music. New musical ideas are being explored and though they might seem dumb, they're actually quite creative.
Again, though, your speaking in terms of Lightning Bolt and not music in general.

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:22 PM

That's why I said "I hope." And btw I titled this thread "Sucky?" not "Sucky!"

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:24 PM

Hope is not definitive. I'm telling you definitively Wonderful Rainbow will not define future music.

m^a(t)h 07.05.2006 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
Senseless noise: Wolf Eyes, Hair Police, glitch noise (don't know anymore band names, don't care to)


I agree. Hair Police blow. Wolf Eyes is ok but I hate how they have such a fucking following and how they get everyone to headbang with their gay little fist pumps.

i like prurient. when he has a set, no one talks or does anything...

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nomadicfollower
Wonderful Rainbow will not define the future of music.
I don't believe that there is a 'dumbing down' of music. New musical ideas are being explored and though they might seem dumb, they're actually quite creative.
Again, though, your speaking in terms of Lightning Bolt and not music in general.


Actually, I am talking about the use of noise on Lightning Bolt, which is a relatively new use of noise, in that it is a new style of noise (to my ears) which doesn't seem to work at all for me. In that sense, it seems to me that this band has taken elements of noise and made them seemingly less legitimate, and more annoying.

And there is a "dumbing down" in music.

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:27 PM

Musical obscurity is very appealing to fans, I guess, and Wolf Eyes is, or was?, an obscure band.

nomadicfollower 07.05.2006 11:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
Actually, I am talking about the use of noise on Lightning Bolt, which is a relatively new use of noise, in that it is a new style of noise (to my ears) which doesn't seem to work at all for me. In that sense, it seems to me that this band has taken elements of noise and made them seemingly less legitimate, and more annoying.

And there is a "dumbing down" in music.




There are elements to noise? It's...I mean....umm....noise.
You've must have never listened to Hair Police..or Wolf Eyes..

drrrtyboots 07.05.2006 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daycare Nation
Actually, I am talking about the use of noise on Lightning Bolt, which is a relatively new use of noise, in that it is a new style of noise (to my ears) which doesn't seem to work at all for me. In that sense, it seems to me that this band has taken elements of noise and made them seemingly less legitimate, and more annoying.

And there is a "dumbing down" in music.

It's a detuned bass guitar through some distortion pedals, no joke. It doesn't work for YOU. And to classify them, and any band for that matter, under noise is pointless. It's become such a pointless classification, like someone asking you about a band and telling them they're alternative.

Daycare Nation 07.05.2006 11:32 PM

No, I've never heard those bands. And yeah, I would say that noise has elements to it. Noise is best when it is structured or falls under a melodic umbrella. Noise can also be formless, but even then it follows certain aesthetic guideliness. Lightning Bolt for me just seems to be fucking annoying....don't know how else to put it. I tried to like it--there were about three or four minutes of the album that were good.


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