Lightning Dust – Bush Hall, London 30/11/09

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Those Black Mountain dudes are rather talented, no? Their day jobs may require them to lay down the heavy grooves and blissful unsubtlety that psychedelic hard-rock demands, but side-project Pink Mountaintops displayed a more experimental, shoegaze-y facet to their talents, and now we’ve also got Lightning Dust, where Amber Webber and Joshua Wells go a bit alt-country.

Not to be confused with Lightning Bolt (who are also playing London soon but are VERY VERY DIFFERENT), it really makes the most of Webber’s vocal talents, which have impressed in every band she’s worked with but are finally given centre-stage here. It grabs attention from the very first instant, her heavy country twang tempered with a fragile tremelo that perhaps is a little overdone at times but lends character to even their weakest songs.

Thankfully, there’s not too many of them tonight. Their latest album Infinite Light tails off towards the end, but these tracks are given a new lease of life live. The synths are well-used without exception, and the addition of two extra members for harmony, bass and drum duties ensures the charm of the recorded versions are well recreated, even built upon. The band, especially Webber seem a little nervy but there’s no need to be: ‘Antonia Jane’ and ‘I Knew’ were as fantastic as one would hope and even if other songs didn’t achieve the same impact, the set never descended below the level of “pleasantly diverting.”

A minor gem of a set, it’d be interesting to see what Webber and Wells put their formidable skills to next. Dubstep? Happy hardcore? Medieval plainchant? Whatever it is, it’ll doubtlessly be worth checking out.

Photos by Anika Mottershaw