Lightning Swords Of Death: Baphometic Chaosium – new album & new video

 

“My first impressions of black metal, as a starry-eyed youth, was that it was music meant to be played while sipping wine in a castle, staring over the snowy moors and wondering if the Spectre of Death would appear between the flurries. What I mean to say is that I considered it truly aggressive music, even if it was furious and dark; death and thrash metal were for physical rage, while black metal was for summoning inauspicious demonic intelligences (WHITE ZOMBIE was for driving). Something, however, has changed, not only for me but for black metal. Just as many black metallers have chosen to go the path of the spacey and experimental, many have gone the way of pounding, driving, primal aggression. One such band is LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH from Los Angeles, whose third full-length album, ‘Baphometic Chaosium’, is the soundtrack to a Satanic fistfight,” [introduces the album Emperor Rhombus of MetalSucks fame – read more here]

LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH third full-length was issued through Metal Blade Records on January 22nd 2013 and awaits you here (Metal Blade) and at Amazon's. On their second release on Metal Blade, the band had appropriately become a five piece with the recruitment of lead guitarist “Inverted” Chris Velez, thus completing the pentacle. ‘Baphometic Chaosium’, “a mind altering experience compelled by the embodiment of chaos, death and ecstasy”, dedicated, of course, to LSOD's patron god, was recorded in Corona, California at Trench Studios with engineer John Haddad and was produced by Roskva, “no doubt to the delight of the tributed horned deity”. If we are to believe the rumors, the video for the album's opening track, ‘Baphometic Chaosium’, was directed by the voice of LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH himself, Autarch, formerly known as Farron Loathing. His creation awaits you below.

According to a popular legend,

“nine years ago a pact was made within a dilapidated house hidden in Southern California. It was here that Autarch, Roskva, and Menno found themselves in agreement that should the occult sciences be applied to their music, it would yield spectacular results. LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH, as it was later named, would be in itself a meticulously designed hyper-sigil, constructed to direct and antagonize the limitless dark energy that lurks within the less navigable chasms of the human mind, and in the space between spaces.”

Accordingly, Mephistophelian band recorded their debut LP, ‘The Golden Plague’, in guitarist's Roskva apartment. It was unleashed upon this earth in 2007 on the blackmetal.com label:

“This declaration of unholy war inspired a tour of the West coast and the North Western blocks of the United States. Audiences witnessed performances by men possessed. LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH live continuously proved to be a conqueror's fury leaving an ashen stain on every stage they destroyed:”

In 2008 ensued a split with brethren VALDUR:

“The uber rare split continues to infect all who experience its unyielding expression of true chaos, if they can track it down, and it was only a precursor of the grand and terrible horror that was already looming in the future, like a headsman’s shadow.”

The terrible horror came in 2009 in form of multiple tracks LSOD supplied for the Sony PSP game “Undead Knights”, as well as a track featured on the soundtrack for the horror/thriller movie “Stepfather”, the initiation of drummer Mike Vega, and a worldwide deal the band signed with Metal Blade Records. Their second LP, ‘The Extra Dimensional Wound’ followed in 2010.

LIGHTNING SWORDS OF DEATH features: Roskva – guitar, Inverted Chris – guitar, Menno – bass and Autarch – vocals