Fists of fury

Celluloid or vinyl (or plastic or digitally-encoded bits), doesn't matter. The samurai, like the musical troupe, must strike with ferocity -- unless the troupe's instrument of choice is the player piano, then it's a case of ropes and pulleys and the hope that your intended victim will follow the candy trail to stroll beneath this not very ferocious rambling. In short (too late), too much work. A sword's sharpness & that of six strings must be quick & lethal. Thus, more than a passing resemblance between the movie & its diabolically over-the-top troubadour namesake, Lightning Swords of Death. The Extra Dimensional Wound, whose sonic quality is meatier than their debut (not always an artistically desirable mutation in the grimier of metal circles but, in addition to stretchier guitarwork, this fucking huge bottom end noise should off kvlt skepticism) eviscerates with the precision of a Masamune whilst deploying well-placed hammer blows to the skull and whatever body parts are within reach just to make sure the victim's pleas remain in pooling blood where they belong.

Simplicity is a virtue here, flushed through oversized Bathory/Entombed riffs & straightforward orthodox black metal text peppered with more than a hint of Lovecraftian slime, delivered with that same sore throat-on-steel wool rage we all know & love.

Sounds alluring, but when those are the elements of your template, the spine-into-powder power of the riff is beyond key; it's the very ichor of the beast. So, do LSoD pass the death test?

Generally. Making a statement on an album after only a few dozen spins isn't the most prescient hark! the herald reviewers sing! one can engage in. Heads: I know some of my all-time favorites became so only after having years to percolate in the grey folds lost in attic mildew. Tails: instant gratification chord progressions are like Cosmic Candy. They may give your tongue (or in this case, fingers) a colorful workout, but as the last note rings into oblivion, you realize it was only a sugar rush. So you tracks that I'm wavering on, rest easy. You've got plenty of time. The others make me giddy as a schoolgirl tee hee.

The title track marches the album out of the gate before striding into full gallop, occasionally stopping to step on your neck. A couple of speedfreak workouts follow, including the gloriously titled Nihilistic Stench (no, the song isn't about Washington, D.C., though it should be. Number one, make it so). Zwartgallig, Dutch for both melancholy & the national soccer team, is an apt title for a nimble, ambient bass piece & palate cleanser for what is the best track on the platter, Damnation Pentastrike. Gotta be that rubberband faux-stop/start riff stumble. A couple of predominantly (sort of) doomy trudges through the aural muck present the album's magnum opus & closer, the kitchen-sink, eleven-minute & thoroughly excellent Paths to Chaos.

The seeds germinating in the rotten earth of their inconsistent debut have finally begun to blossom, and though no minor masterwork such as the bleakly stellar Remember Your Death of guitarist/primary composer Roskva's (Jeremy Stramaglio to his mama) Endless Blizzard side project, The Extra Dimensional Wound is a trauma worth smiling about unless you hate metal in which case I hope you read this whole goddamn post muahahahahaha, etc.