I wish this review could just say, “FUCK YEAH, LIGHTNING BOLT!” and I would really leave it at that. But it can’t, so I’ll talk more about why you should be playing this album.

I have no clue what kind of band Lightning Bolt is; are they sprung from the seedy underbelly of the New York Noise scene? The rainy forests of Olympia, Washington on a dreary day in November, 1990? The depths of Hell? From that weird place in yr brain when you’ve had absolutely no sleep but six or maybe 12 cups of coffee in an hour timespan?

Whoever Lightning Bolt is and wherever they’ve come from, I can guarantee you 100% that they’ll shoot a bullet through yr brain and send little bits of yr skull all across the floor of Studio A. Sound appetizing? It should.

With a drummer and vocalist wearing a luchador mask rigged with a terror-inducing microphone and a bassist who shreds beyond belief, Lightning Bolt creates music with a pulse —- and sometimes there’s a melody in there —- that’s loud, raucous and just plain metal. (“Metal” in the hipster reappropriated sense of being hard and awesome, and less bassy screaming vocals.)

Scare some people —- yr mom, yr intern, yrself —- and play this fucking album already.