If you get
Lightning Dust confused with Lightning Bolt via absentminded typo, you might be frightened. Lightning Bolt wields an abrasive blitzkrieg of screeching noise rock that threaten to crash into your house and leave nothing unshattered. Lightning Dust is the quiet aftermath, the rays of sunlight glittering on the broken glass that used to be your living room. Tragic but somehow pretty.
Lightning Dust is the lovelorn child of Black Mountain members
Joshua Wells and
Amber Webber, not to be confused with Pink Mountaintops (the lovelorn child of Black Mountain member Stephen McBean.) With a sophomore album,
Infinite Light, to be released in August on
Jagjaguwar, the duo is ready to deliver all the shining melancholy of lightning bugs trapped in a glass jar. While their first CD was a sparse and spacey side project, the upcoming release holds promise of a more serious venture.
The initial folksy strumming of "I Knew" gives way to telltale Black Mountain instrumentation, but Webber's earnest vocals successfully keep the track floaty. The pop melody on top of the jagged guitar create a sound that's fragile and damaged, while the insistent synths provide a pounding rabbit heartbeat that gives the song a sense of urgency. Clocking in at only 2:30, it's over before you know it and leaves you wanting more, which matches the song's longing for a love grasped briefly before slipping away.
Their influences can sometimes be transparent and they share common ground with countless other bands. Despite all this, the duo has managed to create something that's so quintessentially theirs, all confusion should be eliminated. -
Nina Mashurova
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MP3: Lightning Dust:: I Knew - Infinite Light
Lightning Dust on Myspace