Artist: Lightning Swords of Death
Title: The Extra Dimensional Wound
Type: Album
Label: Metal Blade
When you think of Black Metal, the imagery it conjures up is very vivid. Bleak barren landscapes, dark forests and burning churches, with the silhouettes of little corpespainted Norwegians running away into the cover of the aforementioned woodland. Similarly, when you consider the contribution of Los Angeles, California to music, the imagery which springs to mind is of misogynistic, ozone destroying drag acts in glam bands singing about how many blow jobs your girlfriend is going to give them because of how much they love to rock. Lightning Swords of Death are a Californian black metal band, presenting here their second full length release, ‘The Extra Dimensional Wound’. I was wondering if they could, a) convincingly deliver serious true Black Metal considering the shiny, glossy, seedy environment they are from, and b) whether the hair metal roots would come through and The Extra Dimensional Wound of the title would turn out to be a euphemism for a lady’s front bottom.
So, the first difference you get between Californian and true Norwegian BM is the production. Rather than a dirty, filthy murk of sound echoing with lo-fi screams, you get a highly polished glossy finish in which the high treble of the guitars, thundering bass lines, blasting percussion and rasping vocals can be enjoyed in crystal clear perfection. Now I don’t necessarily subscribe to the theory that all BM has to sound like it was recorded on a mono tape recorder in a wastepaper bin sitting on top of an amp, but it can’t be denied that one thing that is important in BM is the atmosphere, and regardless of the quality of the music itself, which it has to be said in this case is not too shabby at all, there is a distinct lack of atmosphere on ‘The Extra Dimensional Wound’. Songs like ‘Nihilistic Stench’ with its nicely bastardized punk riffs and ‘Venter of the Black Beast’, with its inherently bleak feel topped off by some solid rasping by vocalist Autarch, are clearly quality tracks, but if the production was not quite so perfect, I could really imagine myself being able to get immersed in the sound, rather than sitting there thinking, “ooh, that’s nice”, which I don’t think is the reaction they are really after.
Production issues aside, from a purely musical perspective, LSOD do a decent line in straight up BM with a strong nod to Mayhem. None of that symphonic twaddle to be found here. ‘Damnation Pentastrike’ in particular stands out for its well crafted and simple riffs and a great vocal performance, but it’s ‘Venter of the Black Beast’ with all its Lovecraftian imagery that is the stand out performance. The obligatory throwaway short instrumental ‘Zwartgallig’ offers nothing on an album already running short at eight tracks, and final track Paths to Chaos, whilst clearly intended to be an epic at twelve minutes long, loses its way just as it is getting interesting.
Overall, Lightning Swords of Death have delivered an enjoyable but flawed album in ‘The Extra Dimensional Wound’. Musically, it’s a good, if generally uninspiring line in second wave BM, hampered by some unimaginative riffing and a lack of depth and atmosphere which I lay solely at the feet of the producer. This is definitely worth investigating though, especially for those who prefer their BM without the intrusion of orchestras. Credit where credit is due, this is decent Californian BM, with not even a suggestion of front bottom frolicking anywhere to be found.
www.myspace.com/lightningswordsofdeath
