Wonderful Rainbow

noisy

Sometimes I get too busy to really focus on listening to music, so I appreciate an album that actively encourages me to tune it out.

Insane but sadly not my thing at all. Cool that they’re from RI though

Insane lol. Kinda into it. Kinda too early in the morning for me to have listened to this.

Really didn’t enjoy this.

Noise noise and more unpleasant noise

This was just a lot of noise

Better than I expected. Does drag a bit towards the end. Standout songs: Assassins Two Towers

There was a rainbow of sound. It was not wonderful.

2 like idk feels like they doing to much

very aggressive

ouch :(

interesting conceptually but somewhat anxiety inducing.

Nothing special

"It is considered to be their most accessible album" Wouldn't want to listen to the lesser accessible albums....

hard, head-banging. not my style

Too much noise

Oof. So apparently this genre is called noise rock and I have to admit that I find this reasonable. Quite hard to listen to and even tho I appreciate the very experimental sound I don't think I will listen to this album again.

Rough and grungy, but not in a way I was really into

Okay I get it. Has notes of punk, post-rock, pure noise, industrial, and traditional rock as well. Too easy to criticize, this music is more of an artistic statement than Music. Much like The Fall as an anti-music statement. The album gets SO CLOSE to being interesting at certain points. I definitely experienced some cognitive dissonance, and I think that's what these guys are after (?). There is more interesting avant-garde and noise out there, starting with Merzbow (and maybe ending with Merzbow). I might check out some of this bands newer stuff just to see where they went with this idea.

I will always wonder why posers consider “challenging” a characteristic when listening to music. Not that inaccesible but will certainly never listen to it again.

Rock noises

Derber, treibender Noiserock, der besondere verzerrten Sorte. Mir zu schrabbelig.

Didn’t do much for me.

Almost stopped listening after the first song, which is truly just noise. Stuck it out, and the rest is actual music. Not my thing, though.

I'm not going to lie, I came in fully expecting to give this 1 star. I've heard Lightning Bolt, and their music is not for me. But after listening (and a visit to the album's Wikipedia page), I'm not surprised to see this described as the most accessible LB album. It's not terrible! There are cool noises on here from time to time, and even the odd riff! Still, at the end of the day, noise punk is not my thing, even if this is on the lighter side of headache fuel.

Noisy with completely incomprehensible lyrics. Not for me.

Noisy.

A grind at times, sorta catchy and fun at others. Can appreciate this being different, but noise rock isn't for me. "Assassins" is the best of the bunch.

huvudverk

I wouldn’t listen to it again but it’s interesting. Good album for the list. Different than anything I’ve heard of. 5/10

From the wikipedia, "a truly challenging listening experience" I need challenged listening experiences only.

a bit messy, raw, but some decent nuggets in here, did not complete entire album. Might have to ingest a bit more cocaine to enjoy this?

Noisier than some noise albums, this didn't do much for me unfortunately Stand out songs: - Dracula Mountain

Noise rock. Ni me he enterado del disco. No me ha llamado nada la atención.

More tired than wired. I love my noise but this felt a bit formulaic, and if you can call a noise act this, derivative. Interesting that this album got listed but so many other noise acts seem to have been forgotten. I started off liking it but was a bit tired of it by the end. Thanks BTW to the reviewer on here that mentioned the Boredoms being ignore by this list. I am going to spend the rest of the day listening to them as a palate cleanser and I advise that you do so too

Horrible Rainbow…. Assassins, at least sounds pretty interesting…. There are definitely worse albums on this list and there are a couple that are similar to this one, but at least this one has some rhythm to it. It is listenable, but you really have to be in the right mood for it. 2.5/5

Unrelenting monotonous noise, but 'Longstockings' does break out and is pretty nice until it too devolves into trash noise! 'Wonderful Rainbow' (the song) hints at something magnificent and then vaporizes. Overall, I get it, but I don't want it.

Warning - under no circumstances should you listen to this album while driving. Normally I appreciate a good aural assault. But this album is like taking Negativland or John Zorn’s experimental music and stripping its humor and context.

I agree with the wiki that this is a very accessible noise rock album because its the only one I've heard that I've even sort of understood the appeal of. I still started to get a headache by the end but in the first half I really enjoyed the repeating guitar chords on tracks like assassins and dracula mountain. I would still never listen to this on my own volition but I at least appreciated and got where this one was coming from. The album art is also very fitting because it's like a peak at real hardcore talent and interesting ideas behind mountains and mountains of overwhelming noise.

wtf is this

Interesting but a very difficult listen

if i could go back and change one thing in all of history i would have made it illegal for white men to use guitars or drums from 1990-2005

An album that really sounds like it’s album cover. You’re trying to make sense out of the chaos, with some glimpses of something really beautiful under the surface. 4/10

Not really my cup of tea, but not bad.

Boring stoner rock

Turhankin outo. Ehkä tietyissä nautintoaineissa voisi pelittää paremmin.

Liian kaoottista melua. Joitain ihan jees hetkiä levyllä, niin ei ihan pelkkää ykköstä viitti antaa

If Wikipedia calls this their most accessible album, then I truly don't want to know how their other stuff sounds

Noise just barely melodic. Barely.

Noise. Soo much noise.

Didn’t massively vibe

Noisy mess of an album

At first I thought this would be waify indie, but no it's noisy as it gets. They seem to have one specific bearable rhythm, and the rest is... well, it's noise. I don't want to pretend this is talented. Intentionally bad is still bad. 2/5.

Noise alert. Drum, bass and unintelligible shouting. Gotta admire the vision but its a nah from me.

Um, this is a ... challenging listen. There is nothing enjoyable about it, and I do feel that I basically suffered through it. That said, there are some interesting/not boring experiments happening here, so it should get some credit for that. Totally not my jam, but interesting enough to warrant at least a 2/5.

Never heard of this band so going in I didn't know what to expect. The first couple of songs were super, super rough but near the end it started to get more enjoyable. It is an interesting listen and something I am happy to have heard, but don't think I'll ever need to hear again. It's not the worst thing I've heard on this list, but it doesn't suit my tastes.

Her en der heeft het iets weg van muziek, en dan is het ook best aardig. Het gaat zelfs een beetje richting Muse. Maar voor de rest is het toch veel ongeinspireerde bagger. Ook nog eens beroerd geproduced, waardoor je de drum, bas en gitaar nauwelijks uit elkaar haalt. Maar dat zal ook wel het idee zijn, gewoon lekker veel herrie maken. Nou, mij niet gezien. Het doet me wel aan het denken zetten over dit soort muziek. Als Pink Floyd zoiets gemaakt zou hebben, zou ik er met een hele andere blik naar kijken, maar hier kan ik toch niet doorheen kijken.

It was OK. There were some songs like 'Two Towers' which I ejoyed but a lot of the tracks wee quite repetitive in parts.

2 stars, which is probably more than this deserves, but less than the number of times I had to apologize to my wife for what she had to overhear.

There's certainly a crock at the end of the rainbow, but it's not full of gold.

Musical expression of anxiety

pummeling. i am pummeled.

This one is new to me. Never heard of them or this album, so I didn't know what really to expect. Boy, this is unique for sure. It's a form of aural assault from the get-go. The best description I can give that at least made sense to me is that it is like a hard/Indie rock version of some of the freakout moments from the Grateful Dead's live Dark Stars or Playing In The Bands just without the eventual payoff of a killer melody or mind-blowing improv. One song of this sounds kind of cool, an entire album is tedious. I get why it was picked, but it didn't do a whole lot for me. It's not a 1 as I did find redemptive qualities in a lot of it. But it's a solid 2 for me.

If this is a wonderful rainbow then i evidently like my rainbows less full of wonder. Should be a 1 really but not quite as awful as those

Comme très souvent lorsque j'ai une dizaine de critiques à rattraper, je vais utiliser une de mes techniques de secours consistant à vous copier mot pour mot l'avis à chaud laissé dans la boîte aux lettres de mon principale antagoniste, eltrapeze : "Lightning Bolt c'est odieux". Pas besoin d'en rajouter, semble-t-il...

Cet album ne laissait que peu d'espoir avant même de le lancer. En effet, je pris soin comme souvent de rechercher le nom de l'album sur Wikipédia avant de découvrir ses premières notes. En quelques secondes, un indice énorme m'était donné sur la qualité de ce disque: les genre musicaux choisi par les Lightning Bolt sont en effet les suivants: noise rock, désagréable rock, bruit d'ondes radio rock. Tout un faisceau de genres à fuir donc. L'album n'a pas déçu, puisqu'il était en effet tout ce qu'il y a de plus indigeste.

It was better than I expected and was sometimes surprising. Not my thing though.

I think 30,000 Monkies is a good representation of 30,000 monkeys in the music store

This gave me anxiety. When punk turns to noise, I'm outta there.

Crazy

Almost unlistenable and not in a good way.

Didn't listen but I trust my friends

I know how to perfectly describe this album in one incomplete phrase: If Metallica were strongly influenced by Yoko Ono. I feel I’ve said all I need to say on this “music” album.

As convinced as I am that main purpose of this is to be interesting rather than pleasant I just kept getting a bit bored. 10% of the album is just annoying noise, 10% is very interesting and inspired but 80% just flew by me despite it's best efforts to be anything else than boring.

The review for being on this list included that it was a “challenging listen” yep

This is borderline punk. Bad punk. This just isn't my genre.

oh man. all the songs thus far are like the intros to songs that end up being just the songs. About halfway into Towers and I just want it to stop. Man this stinks. some of it is followable, others is just a wall of sound.

There are some great, interesting noise albums. This one is ok.

This might be the opposite of what I listened to yesterday. I had to look up what IDM is. I can't believe anything/anyone would self-identify that way. Who can dance to this? The rhythm is so jilted and angular. There were definitely parts of it that were cool and parts of it to like, but honestly it feels more academic than anything else. There's definitely a time and place for this, but I don't think I know when or where that is. Standouts: Dracula Mountain, Crown of Storms, Longstockings, Duel in the Deep

Favourite track(s): Assassins; Dracula Mountain Somehow this was easier to listen to than Joni Mitchell. The bass lines are kind of cool and it is less incoherent than I expected when I read the term Noise Rock. Still, it's noisy and I won't listen to it again. Ever.

A couple of interesting beats, but mostly just not my thing.

Would be good if pissed out of your head and full of speed. Sober, it is just noise!

I don't like it when the reviewer promises a 'truly challenging listening experience". This is definitely hard, fast, loud, but there's some artistry to it. Now, how do I get rid of this ringing in my ears?

Pretty dire. Some good motifs but just absolute trash between them.

I can see why it's well reviewed, but not my style

Nah, not for me.

Errrr

I am not super into Lightning Bolt, but they are quite a force.

męcząca

Zwischen 2 und 3. Tendenz eher zu 2.

Bizzare album. Not everyone's cup of tea... Not sure it is mine either, but I did enjoy listening to it more than expected. 2/5

There were parts of this that were fun, interesting sounds - these guys can clearly play their instruments - but they didn't take it anywhere worth listening to. Very little coherence, nothing behind it. Noise rock is a very apt name. 2/5 as it had quite a few moments of interest, but definitely nothing more than that.

Jees onpahan noisekin koettu. En osaa oikein arvostella tätä, ei oo mun juttuja man mut ihan siistiä. 2/5 maku, josta en ole vielä oppinut pitämään.

If I wanted to hear 40 minutes of angry, unpleasant noise then I could just tell my wife she really DOES look fat in those jeans. But who am I kidding, that would be 3 days of unpleasant noise. 2 stars, only because a couple of songs had some redeemable qualities. I just hope the boys in that band wear ear protection.

Not sure when I'd be in the mood for this. Frenetic.

I never felt more like I had a hangover when I didn't have a hangover when I listened to this.

uselessly confused

2.5 overstayed its welcome and got a little annoying by the end but not the worse thing i've ever heard.

This album made me realize I may not like punk as much as I thought

Noise rock. "Noise" is defined as "a sound that lacks an agreeable quality or is noticeably unpleasant or loud." When explaining the raison d'être for noise rock, guitarist Steve Albini of Big Black said, "Anybody can play notes...the point here is stretching the boundaries." I would point out that a hug is something pleasant, but stretching the boundaries makes it strangulation. Stretching the boundaries is not always good. I like notes. There were some moments of interest in this, but I would have enjoyed a "best five minutes" version.

Hmmm. I didn't really enjoy this nor did I find it very interesting in its unpleasantness. I found it temporarily and only slightly more interesting when I learned that this is just drums, bass, and vocals. But then my interest waned again. But I'm not mad that it exists. If this is their most accessible album, I'm a bit curious about the others. Those might be more interesting.

Loud. 5/10

Very noisy. Some of the noise am actually sounded nice though.

I didn’t really like it

This was definitely interesting but really not my style. I have a lot of love for the experimental aspect of it though but I will not revisiting.

This album was too noisy for me. Tracks like "2 Towers" and "Crown of Storms" would attempt to get interesting, and then the amount of chaos would ramp up. No thanks.

This gets a second star because I thought the drumming was excellent.

Very much like a fistful of Reese’s peanut butter cups mixed into a bowl of pickled herring.

I tried. I really, really tried. I’m not a punk fan. Like at all. But I really tried with this one. If each song was maybe no more than 2 minutes, then this would be ok. But I don’t need 3 plus minutes of headache inducing music that only gets louder when the headache is getting worse. Maybe if I was in one of those destruction room bars where you can just break a bunch of shit to vent your frustration. But this didn’t do it for me, not one iota. But at least it’s not, shudder, Nightfly

apprezzo le sperimentazioni, meno il rumore

A little too out there for my taste. Interesting sounds, but not for me.

Not in latest (2018) book.

On to good side of one I guess.

My ears have been abused.

Could be considered rock, definitely considered noise. If you like lots of random noises and squealing, you'll like this. I don't and I didn't. That being said, not the worst thing on this list and must have taken some creativity to make somewhat listenable. 1.5/5

Started to listen to this but thought it was a load of crap so gave up

This should be on the list of albums not to listen to. Utter shite.

What on earth is this. Worst album so far?

discordant noise. 0

"a truly challenging listening experience" - am Arsch die Räuber! Purer Krach. 1/5

Guess this is the kind of metal I don’t like, felt very cacophonic

Better than Radiohead

Today’s album completely passed me by in 2003. I’d never heard of Wonderful Rainbow by Lightning Bolt and had absolutely no idea what to expect going into it. After a quick Google, I discovered it was described as noise rock. Until doing this challenge, I’m not sure I even knew noise rock was a genre, but I’ve certainly discovered that it’s not for me! Melody, songwriting and storytelling are so much more important to me than simply making as much noise as possible. I suspected this was going to be a tough listen, although thankfully it’s a relatively short one. In the 1001 Albums book, Wonderful Rainbow is described as “a mix of sheer abuse and welcome diversity, for a truly challenging listening experience”. I definitely agree with the challenging part! Unfortunately, nothing I heard today gave me any desire to ever listen to it again. For me, this is largely just noise without enough of a point. The songs rarely seem to go anywhere, there’s very little melody to grab onto and I didn’t find enough variation in the sound to keep me interested. I know the relentless drums, distorted bass and sheer intensity are exactly what some people will love about Lightning Bolt, but to me it often just sounds like a few power chords being repeatedly battered into submission. Favourite track: “Dracula Mountain” was OK. It at least had plenty of pace and energy and was probably the moment I came closest to enjoying the album. Least favourite tracks: So much of this just comes across as noise and does absolutely nothing for me. “Hello Morning” and “Assassins” were particularly poor. Album artwork: Cool album cover. Very colourful, strange and arty — considerably more enjoyable than the music!

Listens: 1 Standout Tracks: Dracula Mountain "... a truly challenging listening experience" is all you need to know, straight from the 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die book itself. This is not so much music as it is violet thrashing of guitar chords and banging of drums, with only the vaguest hint of "lyrics" that are entirely drown out. But even if you could hear the lyrics, and they were good, would it matter?

Literally noise

Sounds like what happens when you get a new distortion or overdrive pedal and you spend a few minutes seeing what it can do, only someone spread it over 40 minutes and released it via a record label...

That was crap!!

Not for me

#430 **Lightning Bolt Wonderful Rainbow 2003** No Heard before? ❌ Would I revisit? ❌ Listen before you die? ❌ Fave track(s): ❌ Rating: 2/10 ⭐️

Throwing me one of the greatest rock albums to this? Oh generator, you shouldn't have. No really, you shouldn't have

I like heavy riffs and garage rock but you have to have structure, which this is completely lacking. No thanks.

There was in fact a lot of noise going on.

Mmmm not my thing sorry.

Tää oli kyllä huono. ⭐️

Not sure how anyone would ever find this enjoyable.

I could make this album. That is not a compliment.

The type of album that only people who listen to too much music enjoy. No normal person listens to this crap. I didn’t hate a lot of the guitar riffs, but they’d always get interrupted by some random, obnoxious noise that completely ruined it.

What an insult.

There are stupid genres and there are stupid audiences, I suppose. Noise rock? Seriously? This is some of the worst mierde I've ever heard termed "music." And I thought Marilyn Manson would be my only one-star review.

Not a fan!

Ruido. 1/10

That headache isn't going away anytime soon :O/

like the sound of the dentists drill

Cacofonía.

this was so bad? it was just meaningless noise. one of the worst albums on this list for sure

Lots of noise

I did not enjoy this album.

Yeah, no. I fucking hate this.

Muy difícil de escuchar un lunes a las 11 de la noche..

Nah

Meh

I genuinely cannot imagine a time, place, or state of mind in which I would find this enjoyable.

A duo, one (almost virtuosic) bassist and an agile drummer who occasionally shouts, make up this 'noise rock' band. This album is meant to be the more accessible in their catalogue and is a series of overdriven repeated pounding riffs (at best) with frantic drumming - apparently in critics' top albums of the 2000s. All I can express is bewilderment at anyone who could possibly consider this band as being worthy of a second listen - this album, to my ears, is horrid and is clearly aimed at a countercultural audience who have gone 'beyond metal'. I don't hear energy and anger, I just hear laziness.

I see reviews lauding this making me think I missed something but man, I listened to this whole album and all I heard was noise. It made me question all that was good in this world. If that was the point, well done, otherwise, it was the most unpleasant album I have ever experienced.

Minus 5 stars. Absolutely dreadful

Smash this album to bits so that we may save humanity from this ear grinding torture.

There was nothing wonderful about this shit. Just a bunch of bad noises on loop for 41 minutes smh

Started out screechy and horrible. Went downhill from there.

When you make noise and it’s noisy

2/10…digital hardcore / noise rock / *2003

Noooooo! Terrible

I agree with the reviewer this was a “truly challenging listening experience".

I know it was a noise rock album but it was too chaotic and disconnected for me

I like music that has "noise" when it is energetic and purposeful. This is...music put in a blender. The amount of guitar screeches alone was nails on a chalkboard. There was one song that sounded like it had other instruments, and that was a very meh okay.

Noise rock certainly lives up to its name here; there's plenty of noise. Unfortunately, I didn't find much of it very entertaining. I can appreciate the energy and technical ability it takes to create this kind of controlled chaos, but after a while it all starts to blur together. The constant sonic assault leaves very little for me to latch onto, and by the end I was more exhausted than impressed.

That sinking feeling you get when you read this is considered their most accessible album

I had never heard of this band or this album. I went into it blind and just started playing it before reading about it. Let's just say the the title of the album is a little deceiving. Lightning Bolt is a two person band - a bassist and a drummer. Their style of music is "noise rock". So, this was not the most relaxing album to listen to on a Sunday morning with my coffee. In fact, I think it made my morning anxiety worse. And I apologize to any of my neighbors that might have been out in their lanais trying to enjoy a quiet morning coffee. I kept it turned down, but that album was intense. Can't say I enjoyed it. Just lots of noise and not really music.

enough of that

couldn’t find

A track starts and you think, ‘I quite like that riff’. Then you notice that it’s 7 minutes long and nothing changes from beginning to end. Then the next track starts. And it’s the same. All very clever - difficult time signatures and all that - but not exactly easy listening. I realise that not everything has to be easy to listen to, but there does have to be some reward for me to want to listen to it again. Which, in the case of this album, I won’t be.

Juuh elikkäs 😬 Ihan taidokasta soitantaa, mutta ei vaan pysty

Ääh. :D Tavallaan osista tykkäsin mut olihan tää nyt ihan metakkaa vaan.

Well, noise rock perfectly describes this album. That was noisy with little in the way of a melody. Not for me.

Puro ruido

Опять залупа какая то

This is the sort of music that I'd imagine a moody, "you don't get me, mom!" teenage son would play obnoxiously loud in a 2000s movie, in the basement, just to be as annoying as possible, because he's so gosh-darn angry over nothing of note! Suffice to say, this album is irritating, stupid, pretentious and unlistenable. It sounds like watching someone having a severe manic episode, while someone hyperventilates and wheezes next to your ears, and also there's an air raid siren going off.

Valehtelematta ensimmäinen albumi mitä en yksinkertaisesti voinut kuunnella loppuun 0:5

I really wanted to give this a fair chance, and was kind of into parts of it at first, but it very quickly got on my nerves. If this is their "most accessible" album, I'm afraid of their other music. Favorite Song: Dracula Mountain

Awful

I'm sorry... is this a kind of joke? It's just the noise from your neighbor, who's renovating his apartment.

Just loud, abrasive noise. I love electronic music and lots of people say it’s just noise. I hear the beauty and structure in it. I’m sure someone hears the beauty and structure in this, but to me it’s just noise.

Musical runoff. It's as if all the unused music, notes, and sounds from better albums were compressing into their own horrible album.

There is a lot of discourse about certain artists being overrepresented on this list. Neil Young, Paul Simon, Elvis Costello among others. I agree but I think it's because there are some major oversights of class albums on this list. Weezer Blue Album comes to mind. But I believe some people's argument is that when you have crappy early 80s Paul Simon you are missing out on something interesting and unique to present to the people. Well, if this is the sort of thing that there would be more of on this list, bring on more Neil Young!

My friend and I made an album that sounded like this... in sixth grade. I didn't know we were trendsetters.

Noise. Sorry but it was a difficult listen

Noise rock and experimental punk built from distorted bass, pummeling drums, and feral vocals feels like being locked inside a washing machine full of fireworks while someone repeatedly turns the spin cycle higher—relentless, chaotic, and for me more punishing than exhilarating. The album's refusal to offer contrast or breathing room turns excitement into fatigue very fast. What some might hear as liberating noise, I only hear as exhausting sensory overload.

No....just no

Nope

Not for me, man. A repetitive cacophony of bass, drums, and the muffled incoherent bleat of vocals. I wouldn't consider it completely devoid of artistic merit, but "a truly challenging listening experience" ain't wrong.

Complete shit load of noise throughout

No thanks. You can put the word 'rock' after 'Noise', but it doesn't take out the part where it's largely just noise.

There is some good noise in the cacophony of noise on this album but you have to listen really really hard for it and I just can't be bothered.

Noise

tönt wie andere alben auf doppelter geschwindigkeit - furchtbar!

Not for me

Nope

Mi fa tipo stra cagare

This one is supposed to be a very challenging listen, so we'll see how it goes. I might not actually do a track-by-track commentary. I have to say that the suggested classification of "noise rock" is not promising, especially since *Wonderful Rainbow* is referred to as Lightning Bolt's most accessible album. We'll see. Right up front. First track. *Hello Morning*. I can see how this is going to go. It's going to go with pain and suffering and regret. A pile of electric guitars thrown into a random stack with some kick drum, large amounts of distortion and feedback. Oh yeah, 56 seconds of that is exactly what I needed to get into the right headspace. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. Track Two, *Assassins*. I have never wanted to pull an Oedipus Rex on myself, except using the ears rather than the eyes, more than I do right now. At least I don't have to complain about the lyrics, because while there is some incomprehensible stuff shouted through a really bad loudspeaker in the back, there's absolutely no chance of making out what it actually is saying. Normally, this is where I would point to some excellent instrumentalist work, but the only person putting in any effort at this point is the drummer, who is just going off and doing his own thing, which in fairness is kind of what I wish I could do right now. The rest is repetitive upwards arpeggio, and not a very good one. We've made it all the way out to *Dracula Mountain*, and I have to ask, what the fuck is this shit? I think I've figured out their play, and I'm not excited about going through another seven tracks of it. Basically, they grab a relatively simplistic melody, play it over and over and over and over and over with a gross amount of distortion on it. Maybe at some point, they drop out the background and have the guitar riff on that for about five seconds, and then go back to just layering completely messy garbage while playing the same riff over and over and over and over and over again. That's it. That's their compositional style. Oh yes, and have somebody incoherently yelling into a loudspeaker, which itself is ridiculously distorted at some point. If that's the entirety of this album, the music industry and I are going to have some words. We've fetched up at the bottom of *Two Towers*, and I'm not sure how much more of this I can take. It's seriously seven minutes and nine seconds of the band playing two different riffs over and over again, only speeding up a bit in the last couple of minutes of the song. There was a good four-second section about 40 seconds in that I thought they were going to do something interesting and establish a baseline. I was curious as to where they were going, and then they went the exact same place over and over and over again. I'm not pretentious enough to say that this shouldn't be called music, but I am pretentious enough to say that if you paid money for this experience, perhaps hiring a dominatrix would be more satisfying for your masochistic urges. *On Fire* almost is a song. It does have some dynamism, which none of the preceding four tracks had even a hint of, so it has that going for it. There's a little bit of progression. There's a little bit of something adjacent to a melody. It's not a real melody, but it can see one from where it's standing. Lightning Bolt can't maintain it, and they revert to their old ways three quarters of the way through a 4-minute, 43-second song. That's disappointing performance no matter what you're doing. The thing that pisses me off here is I can see flashes of near competency for a couple of chord changes or 15 seconds of drumming, but it's like they catch themselves and have to fuck it up aggressively to keep their street cred. It's agonizing. At this point, I wish I could make incomprehensible noises through a loudspeaker into this review, just like the lead singer of Lightning Bolt, because *Crown of Storms* engenders that kind of response. Great, awesome title. You had my attention. It almost has some dynamism, like *On Fire*. Somewhere in the middle it shifts a bit and we get incomprehensible drunken loudspeaker noises being used as more of a tone wash and melodic component, which I didn't expect, but that doesn't make it good. I'm pretty sure that we are just listening to the guitarist run through his "Learn to Play Guitar in 30 Days" exercises during the recording. That someone got paid during any part of the production of this album so far should be a violation of the United Nations directive against inhumane treatment. I have a sad admission to make. The rest of this album has been so absolutely terrible that *Longstockings* was my favorite track. It starts out pretty decent. It's a short riff, but it'll work. We've got a lot of distortion. It's not cycling quite as hard, and the drums come in at an appropriate time to help shake things up. Make things lively. Even the incoherent mumbling/ranting on the loudhailer is almost charming, given the relative cleanness of the rest of the song. I was even starting to get into it, but then they hit the two-thirds of the way mark, and it literally descends into ridiculous cacophony with all the instruments just being beaten and the vocalist screaming incoherently. Then finally it all collapses into nothing but screeching feedback at the end. It's like they showed that they could perform music, and then just when you took a step closer to the stage to listen to it, they whipped out their dicks and pissed right in your face, which may have been their intention in putting this song together. I'm starting to think it might have been. I hate this. I hate it here. Finally, we get to the title drop of the album *Wonderful Rainbow*. You know what? This doesn't entirely suck. Is it repetitive and uncreative? Oh yeah, absolutely. Is it still sounding like the guitarist is going through his pick exercises and not actually trying to play music? Absolutely, no question. Is the lyricist making nonsensical baby noises into the loudspeaker in the background? Perversely, yes. But the guitar isn't heavily distorted. It's actually a reasonably clean acoustic, and there's this sort of dreamy wash reverb happening on the guitar part. Honestly, get rid of the vocalist, probably by setting them on fire and laughing as they burn to death, and this might be a good fragment of a song. A seed, a starting place. We'll get back to this idea later. Is it good? Oh, fuck no. Is it good for this album? It's the best we've got so far. I get it. *30,000 Monkies*. I get it. You are literally trying to embody the idea that 30,000 monkeys banging on 3,000 typewriters for an infinite amount of time would turn out the entire works of Shakespeare and every other piece of creative art ever created in the history of mankind, seen from the perspective of the end of the universe and heat death. That's exactly what you manifested by just banging on your instruments with no rhyme or reason for three minutes and 50 seconds. An endless cacophony that's only punctuated in the middle by an accidental return to the guitarist not being able to be that fully incoherent for that long and returning to his pick exercises. Everyone involved with this should not just be painfully executed, but we should find out their producers and torture them until we find out where they hid the money. Their screams would still be better than this track. You know what? I was wrong. *Duel in the Deep* is my favorite track off of this album, mainly because I don't entirely hate it. Does it do exactly the same thing as every other track? Sure. The guitarist is playing the same riff over and over again. They've got a wash of distortion and reverb. It's mercifully mostly free from shouting through the loudhailer, so it's got that going for it. The thing that sets it apart from the other tracks is that it feels like it's going somewhere. It doesn't actually; it's an illusion. But because of the way that the background elements are washing through, it feels like there's a certain amount of kinesis, that there is some dynamism, that things are changing and evolving. It's not real. The song goes on for way longer than it has to, and that's only partly because the last minute and a half is just distortion and screaming feedback. Look, I love punk music. I've seen punk bands live. I've listened to a ton of punk bands, and the one thing they have in common is that even though they are totally about the DIY and instrumentality is not the first thing on their minds, and that they love screaming into a microphone, they would look down on Lightning Bolt as not good enough musicians to be a punk band. Not even that annoying high school punk band that was trying so hard to be edgy in mom's garage. Those guys would turn their nose in the air at these sad, pathetic excuses for musicians. The most frustrating thing about this album is that it feels as though each of the tracks could have been a real song. They are unfinished, incomplete, incoherent because someone didn't spend the time to make them whole. They needed editing, an actual melody, some crafting of the mix. You know, everything that shows that you care about your work and you want people to enjoy it. I won't go so far as to say this is anti-music, but I can say that the band members all need to be beaten severely until they can get themselves properly composed. Also, give that drummer a real job with a prog rock band, because I think he could handle it. He just needs to have somebody demand more of him. Jesus Christ, this was a trial.

Ouch

not my thing

Why did they put this on the list?

Makes jazz sound tuneful. Absolute shite. No stars.

bad. discordant noise. Art, not to be enjoyed.

You know the music they play in movies to show a character is super edgy? It's noise pollution at its finest. The bad-ness of this album is almost poetic. I know the whole point of this genre is to make a bunch of bullshit, but oh my gosh. I'll give it to them, though, it's interesting.

I never understand why good musicians gather together and refuse to make something coherent. Yeah yeah it's a fuck you to the 'industry', and you are cool because you are avante hard or whatever. Just don't make me listen to it.

This was fucking horrible. Jesus. I begged for this to end repeatedly. It just sounds like noise. Sometimes something kinda good would happen but then it would just keep going or get annoying. Yeah this sucks Songs with something good: "Dracula Mountain" , "2 Towers" , "Longstockings" , "Wonderful Rainbow"

This is actually the worst album I've listened to. Ever. There are clearly some instruments. There is sometimes rhythm. There is never melody. It's bad. So bad.

Noise Rock, 2003 -> 1

Got the just of it in about 30 seconds. Somehow there was 40 more minutes of it. Might be the worst one I've run into so far.

If you enjoy getting a headache… Cool cover though

1/5. Noise rock is not really my standard.

I get the whole experimental thing but is literally noise.

Eins og segir í lýsingu á Wikipedia: Noise rock, og a challenging listening experience...

Really? In 1001?

Even noise rock needs some simple things like structure and a touch of melody, both absent here. I checked to see if they have ever played at 2000 Trees, but seems not. They would fit well on the Cave Stage on a wet Friday afternoon. Enough said.

Not at all wonderful

A line has to be drawn somewhere. 1*

Repetative, loud and chaotic. You can barely hear the vocals so it just sounds like whailing. I'm sure it's someone's cup of tea, certainly not mine. But I can still appreciate it's existence

The Good: Lightning will only strike once in the same place!!! The Bad: This bolt just keeps on pounding us in the groin… The Ugly: Being mislead by the fucking rainbow… Okay, so noise is art, I guess. If one would want to start a fight, play this album. If one would want to get ready to rumble, play this album. If one would want to have a good time… forget you ever had to listen to this album… Thanks for wasting my time, Mr Dimery! 1*

Today I discovered an entire genre I didn't know I should avoid. The best thing about this album is the cover.

That sure was noise

I wouldn't say it's outrageous enough not to be boring.

Awful

My head almost exploded while my brain begged me for mercy.

No. Im having a bad run today.

Awful, just noise

I am now in my early 60s. I have experienced the loss of my parents. My friends are starting to drop, one by one, as if picked off by a sniper. I am coming to grips with my own mortality and giving serious thought to how I want to spend my remaining time on this planet. At no point in this process of reflection did it occur to me that I wanted to hear this fucking record.

oh my god. no no no.

WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.

Yikes. I guess you might call it speed metal? I think for the average music fan this music is unlistenable. It has its place in a very small subculture which is fine but it hardly ranks among the very best. I’m over a third way down with this list that has been saddled with the horrors of mediocre electronic music, 90s Britpop, and raging indecipherable heavy metal.

So much noise 👎

Toegankelijk mijn voeten. Chaos waar ik nerveus van word.

Stresserend

Terrible - like Corey Feldman or Nick Jonas playing a “guitarsolo” for 40 minutes

DNF - trust me I get it and it’s great to push boundaries and I’m hear for noise rock, this just very much was not for me in the slightest, DNF’s are 1’s, sorry about that - I bet Jesse loved this album though xx

Oh no

The Wikipedia blurb says this is "noise rock". I don't know what classifies it as such but the noises they included made me wince and pause it several times. This was really bad and one of the few albums I had to force myself through and an experience I'm not happy to have had.

1/5

The sonic equivalent of a pneumatic drill - the "tool" is working exactly as intended, but that doesn't mean I want to listen to it for forty minutes. There is some degree of technical ability and structure in there - but is it worth looking for? Ultimately, no! One star. 1 "Hello Morning" (2/5) 2 "Assassins" (2/5) 3 "Dracula Mountain" (2/5) 4 "2 Towers" (1/5) 5 "On Fire" (1/5) 6 "Crown of Storms" (1/5) 7 "Longstockings" (1/5) 8 "Wonderful Rainbow" (2/5) 9 "30,000 Monkies" (1/5) 10 "Duel in the Deep" (1/5) Total - 14 Average - 1.4 293/1001 156/293 albums reviewed were new to me

No me gustó nada, muy metálico todo

Ah, so this is what noise rock is.

Ouch. My fucking ears.

I see the concept but I'm not going to pretend that I like it

Impossível

Bullshit

nope

This was not a necessary part of my day.

Noise

Anything but this.

This album was just annoying. Don't listen to it while you are relaxing. They sound more like a dead bolt.

Literally just noise ???

2/10 Do I consider this music rather than a random assortment of discordant sounds? It's heavy on the avant garde spectrum, but yes. Do I find this appealing music? Not even remotely. There's barely anything here to grasp on to or to draw me in - no real hooks or nice beats or anything. What I find interesting, however, is that the band so deliberately pushes the boundaries of what is music that it makes it clear that they know what they're doing, and they made this album intentionally, indicating that they could make something sonically appealing if they really wanted. Unfortunately, for me and how I listen to music this album is just not that great.

Fuck off. That’s literally just noise.

Fue como escuchar una obra en construcción

No

An overload of noise that separately some of which is not bad, but all together is just painful. 1/5

Støjrock. Meget distortion. Ikke rart at lytte til.

I am open-minded but skeptical.

Like getting a buzz saw drilled into my head. And for some reason it takes me 41 minutes until I can finally fucking die from the sheer trauma. Or maybe this is what meth feels like. After it's been laced. Cool album cover. Drums go hard at times. I have nothing else to say. Fave track: - Assassins

Garbage

This is not music, it is noise. Whoever is responsible for allowing this to be recorded and distributed should be punished. To say I hate it is not strong enough. If I could give negative stars I would.

Woof.

Pretty terrible : ((

This was awful. “Noise Rock” should have been the tell.

Life’s too short for me to listen to this

I think I have a headache.

I can just about see the attraction to a certain hardcore crowd, but ultimately it made me feel a bit sick, and that’s not what I’m after with music.

I'd call it a piece of shit, but I've definitely made more melodic sounds when taking a shit.

There is absolutely no reason why I need to listen to "Wonderful Rainbow" before I die.

Stop

Well, this was as advertised. Noise. There wasn't anything that felt like a melody or a beat that I could grab on to, just noise. Really not enjoyable.

Цей альбом суцільне божевілля і шум. Спочатку виглядає незвично і навіть цікаво, потім набридає, а в кінці дратує. Мені дуже шкода, бо це реально могло бути щось незвичне, але після 5 хвилини все перетворюється в шум

There was nothing remotely wonderful about this rainbow. rainbows are a pleasure to look at as opposed to this vomit of noise. I even listened to the whole thing to give it the benefit of the doubt. About three quarters of the way through the last song, I said "Fuck Off" out loud and switched it off. 1 star

The last song is the most interesting, but is it enough to push it from a 1 star rating to a 2? Absolutely not.

i want to give it 5 stars for balls but since i’m certainly never going to listen to it again it’s 1 star

Not a bit of me... didn't even finish the album.

Yep this was fucking shit no two ways of saying it

Thanks but no thanks.

not my thing

Unlistenable

Nope. Repetitive instrumental grating annoying noise. Nothing about this gave me any pleasure or evoked any emotion other than annoyance at having wasted my drive to work listening (tolerating) this. I will say the bass on at least a couple of tracks was notably interesting. But that doesn’t save this.

I made the mistake of starting this album on a drive on the LA freeway. I found myself completely deregulated, speeding, ready to yell at bad drivers. I had to turn it off and drive in silence for a while. I don’t get the appeal or significance of this album.

This is... not good.

yikes

I don't get it

I bought brand new AirPods Pro 3 last week and I’m upset this was one of the first few albums I listened to on them. What a waste.

jfc I hated every minute of this noise

Probably great if you are living with a traumatic brain injury.

I don’t understand

No.

What the fuck even was that?! No.

wieder mal experimental, also leider auch nichts für mich

According to Wikipedia, the actual 1001 Albums book describes this as "a truly challenging listening experience." I must admit, the book really called it on this one!

Rainbows are wonderful. God's promise. This, however, is not wonderful. It's not even okay. It's is everything I have come to despise about this list. Dude, if there wasn't 1,000 albums, make it 500. Make it 100. Enough with the garbage already. Third straight day with a one-star review.

Haaaaated this. This was painful from start to finish and I only persisted for completeness of this project.

Now this is weird one type of 'music' fitting the description of another. 50% of this album was a bunch of idiots mindlessly beating shit out of their instruments accompanied by tuneless vocal noises. The same description as thrash metal. But this isn't thrash metal.the other 50% of the album was "ooh, this is a decent riff, let's repeat it monotonously ad infinitum". There really isn't anything positive to say about this crap. 1 because there isn't a 0.

This is described as their most accessible album. I won’t be seeking out their other work, as this wasn’t very welcoming to me!

Usually would like this but seemed a bit too harsh. Couldn't get into it. I'm assuming for it's time this was groundbreaking but seems very similar to current day underground music

The only reason to listen to this album before you die is to remind you of how much better other albums are. I have heard bits of every type of riff and noise on this album in other people’s works and they are fine. However, making entire songs from these noises is not fine. It is painful. 1/5