Lightning Bolt - Fantasy Empire (2015)

It’s been six years since the great Providence noisecore duo Lightning Bolt dropped their last album, 2009’s Earthly Delights. You might expect a time gap like that to change a band. You might expect them to return sounding calmer or more adult, or that they might’ve changed their style up a bit. Nope. Fantasy Empire, the new Lightning Bolt album, is a straight-up face-ripper, a grainy assaultive spree of riffs and drum-spazzouts. If you’ve ever spent an evening sweatily moshing to this band in a concrete warehouse, it should trigger some instant sense-memories. It’s hard and immediate and merciless, and it rules. We’ve posted the early track “The Metal East,” and now you can stream the full album at NPR.