WZBC recommends ... Bolt's Wonderful Rainbow

I'm a really big fan of meaningless destruction but, unfortunately, these days there isn't that much of it to go around. The music industry bought punk, nihilism has been reduced to a punch line in The Big Lebowski, and Laurence Taylor is clean and sober. Life's kinda dull.

Which leads me to why I like the Providence noise-rock duo Lightning Bolt so much. While the grey tide of centrism makes this country duller by the day, the Bolt (a nickname applied by famed LA rock critic Dave Foley) tours the world, tearing down anything and everything with sheer noise.

Lightning Bolt was birthed at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which puts it in good company; both the Black Dice and the Talking Heads are fellow RISD grads. That may not mean much to you, but it's kind of insane. For people like me, having the Bolt and the Talking Heads would be like having Marino and Elway QB for BC. The diminutive but likeable Black Dice could be Flutie.

It's tempting, therefore, to declare RISD the coolest place on earth. But my girlfriend Jenna is a freshman there, so I can pretty much say from experience that RISD kids are as much a bunch of tools as anybody. Except they're better at art, more likely to wear Converses, and more likely to hit on Jenna. So forget the RISD correlation.

Yeah, back to the Bolt. Since RISD isn't responsible for this noise-rock phenomenon, the credit has to go to the two band members, bassist Brian Gibson and drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale. Together, the pair improvises, pounds, drones, screeches, and just generally creates enough noise to kill small animals and children. Gibson bulldozes through guitar riffs at warp speed. Chippendale screams his indecipherable vocals into a contact microphone held to his face with a ski mask, drumming hellishly all the while. They are pure energy and sound: with no lyrics and no message, Lightning Bolt shoots without ever taking aim. But it is loud, destructive and wholly addictive, and as its stunning 2003 LP Wonderful Rainbow shows, the band is at the peak of its raucous power.

The intensified staccato of Gibson's bass makes "Assassins," roar like artillery, while Chippendale's warped ranting heightens the combat-like intensity. "Dracula Mountain" opens up in disunited chaos, morphing into a hypnotically terrifying grind before moving brilliantly into the metalist bridge ever, and eventually closing with lunatic chanting. The seven minute "2 Towers" chugs like a freight train, churning off sound in its wake, accelerating all the way to the finish line. Yet as raucous as it is, the Bolt manages time and again to infuse melody in places where melody has not ventured before. It's this addition of method to the madness that makes Wonderful Rainbow not just powerful, but enjoyable.

So if you were the type of kid who used to root for Carnage when you read Spider-man comics, or if you got a real kick out of CNN's shock and awe coverage, or if you just like loud, awesome music, then get down to the record store and get yourself some Bolt.