Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	59/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
The A.V. Club	C
Allmusic
Alternative Press
Consequence of Sound
Entertainment Weekly	B+
Paste	7/10
Pitchfork Media	5.1/10
Punknews
PopMatters	6/10
Rolling Stone

Lightning is the fourth studio album from the indie pop duo Matt & Kim, written, produced, performed and recorded by them in their New York apartment between January and July 2012, using Logic Pro. The ten-track set is an electronic indie pop album which member Matt Johnson described as being upbeat, while on some tracks being a little darker. The group decided "to do as little possible to the songs production-wise and still have them be strong" unlike their previous studio project Sidewalks.

Lightning was released on October 2, 2012, and was promoted with an autumn tour, a giveaway, and a 2013 remix album. Although Lightning sold well enough to reach number 50 on the Billboard 200 among a few other US Billboard charts, it was met with a varied critical reception, holding an aggregate score of 59 out of 100 from Metacritic as of March 2014. Some reviewers criticized the lack of introduction of any new type of music, unlike Sidewalks, while other's thought the album was an improvement from the previous album.

Work on Lightning was done between January 1 and July 2012, in Matt and Kim's old apartment on Grand Street in Brooklyn, New York. The album was written and recorded using the music production software Logic Pro. The 10 tracks of Lightning were pared from 25-26 songs originally written for the album, which Matt Johnson said that "it gave us [Matt and Kim] a lot more to choose from, which let Kim and I really broaden this album out." He said in an interview that the group "felt there was a lot going on in the songs" on their album Sidewalks. "In a way, the safest thing you can do with a song is to make it have a lot of stuff. The more you put on, the less the actual songwriting is exposed. For the new album [Lightning], I was excited to do as little possible to the songs production-wise and still have them be strong." He also said that the album's recording location "was a nice farewell" to the apartment.

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