There have been several 'all-star' ensembles that have surfaced over the past few years and Twilight certainly falls into that trend, but with an interesting twist. For starters, this is their second album, and with a more street cred-worthy line up. Originally, this band consisted of members of Xasthur, Nachtmystium and Leviathan before anyone gave a shit about any of these bands. Their first release was strictly for nerds. Now, Nachtmysitum is big, Aaron Turner is finding stuff to do now that Isis is kaput, and you can't throw a stick without finding an album Sanford Parker didn't produce. I'm not saying any of that is a bad thing, but these factors help carry the weight of the band's name this time around.
The first track right away sounds like Aaron Turner has his hands all over it. This sounds like if Isis wanted to write some folky black metal riff, but really it's just an Isis song with some black metal vocals over it, and it ain't too shabby. The track later comes through with some epic black metal blasts. This definitely sets the tone for the rest of the album. The rest the album twists and turns through a great blend of post-metal psychedelia along with classic late 90s black metal. 'Convulsions in Wells of Fever' definitely hearkens back to Judd's kvlt days. It's nice to see that especially Blake Judd hasn't forgotten how to write a black metal album. When hearing this album you wish this was the album Nachtmystium put out instead of that crappy "Black Metal Pt. 2".
This album is exactly what you'd expect from some of today's heaviest and grimmest. This also exemplifies the current trend of heavy music today: black metal and sludge/noise/psych metal joining forces to capture the best of it all. Definitely a must buy!
While most of SoCal's metal bands are concerning themselves with ruining death metal, Lightning Swords of Death seem to be more concerned with writing some of the rawest and primal black metal this side of the world. While I have great enjoyed Wolves in The Throne Room and Krallice (aka Wealking 2.0), "The Extra Dimensional Wound" is a breath of fresh air.
The album's opener and title track wastes no time cutting your throat like a rusty blade. The guitars on this album are raw as fuck. The entire time I hear this album cannot stop thinking about Watain. Make no mistake, these guys are not a Watain knock-off, but it's safe to say they achieve the same raw energy that only Watain can do in this day of black metal. The album as a whole kind of blurs from start to finish, which steers you away from skipping through tracks. What really sets this band's sound apart is how it manages to capture the early 90s sound that also very close to when Dark Throne was transitioning from death to black metal. I think most black metal bands these days are concerned with capturing an atmosphere, but Lightning Swords of Death wants to bash your heard in. They don't want you to think, they want you to destroy!
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