While all of us dedicated Bolt heads are all still nursing our wounded ear drums after Fantasy Empire, Lightning Bolt’s last aural assault from 2015, one half of The Brians from the band (the “Gibson” half, to be precise) has found new ways to punish the eardrums of a wider and more unsuspecting audience by designing the art and writing the score for a well-received video game called Thumper, which landed at “T” on our alphabetized favorite video games list.
Thumper is described as a “rhythm violence game” (which could pretty much describe a Lightning Bolt show, too); and, essentially, it allows gamers to steer a giant space beetle through a series of fantastic worlds (which, again, could pretty much describe a Lightning Bolt show).
Now, to bring it all back full circle, Thrill Jockey will be releasing a limited-edition, vinyl-only album of the music created for the game on April 22 (Record Store Day), also called Thumper.
If you haven’t played the game, you can check out a sample of the insanity in the video down below. Meanwhile, Thrill Jockey describe the score as such:
Every piece on Thumper dictates a new terrain, each as otherworldly as the next: drifting through ethereal canyons, gleaming over laser infested space, and plummeting into craggy bombasts of meteorite alike. Rhythm here reigns king, although in contrast to the break-neck stylings of Lightning Bolt, Gibson applies a steadier throb that remains as propulsive. Similar to Gibson’s ability to create a multitude of drastically varied tones with his bass and effects pedals, the music of Thumper finds a tapestry of orchestrated instruments — brass, strings, and swaths of percussion instruments — applied with masterful skill.
So… pretty much a great reason to line up early on Record Store Day 2017 already.
More about: Brian Gibson, Lightning Bolt
