Lightning Bolt’s Wonderful Rainbow refuses to detach itself from my playlist, and has come dangerously close to bullying the rest of the playlist’s discs into silence. I very much like the other music currently in rotation—such as Isis’s Oceanic and Aereogramme’s Sleep and Release—but have thus far permitted Wonderful Rainbow its thoughtless self-indulgence because it is so damn good that its wild cries for attention simply cannot be ignored. The album is no less grating than its predecessor, 2001’s Ride the Skies, but while the band previously ignored conventional song structure and only flirted with melody, Lightning Bolt now cautiously employs elements of both, without compromising the frenetic and unbelievably dense sound that is their trademark. The drums still sound as though they’re helmed by a six-armed cloud of caffiene. The bass still shatters iron. The listener’s ears are still persuaded to give blood. But somehow, Lightning Bolt’s thoroughly obnoxious racket is now…catchy. 2003 will be a great year if somebody puts out a better album than this.

As I write this, Dubya prepares to address the nation in less than an hour, which forces me to wonder if gushing over a record isn’t a bit trivial considering the innumerable death certificates that will be signed tonight by our president’s circular verbiage. What can I say? It’s a great record.