Few of us were brutal enough to withstand the first Metalocalypse. You would think the body count, which, not including the converts, numbered in the tens of thousands, would serve as ample warning. Yet here we are again, pushed to the precipice and forced to confront Dethklok’s second album of dark and heavy evil.

But all is not lost. Brendon Small, the creative force behind the fictional band Dethklok, has absorbed enough death metal clichés and tropes to know how to defang the genre’s excesses for Dethalbum II, the songs of which were culled from the second season of the Adult Swim show.

With a concision that somehow makes the dense music feel roomier, the album serves as a friendly introduction — well, up to a point — to death metal. Songs such as “”Laser Cannon Deth Sentence”” and “”I Tamper With the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin”” — even the titles are wonderfully bombastic — pays homage to the genre’s history while acknowledging its underlying nerdy silliness. It’s difficult to take seriously a song that growls: “”There’s nothing to save/You’re my slave/Burn the earth/For minimum wage,”” as “”Burn the Earth does.””

This isn’t to say that Dethalbum II could be considered watered-down metal, however. If anything, the nearly indecipherable lyrics, aggressive yet compact guitar solos, punishing rhythms and greater dynamic shifts in tone show that the music can stand up to the likes of Tiamat, Meshuggah or any other death metal bands.

So metalheads and fans of the animated show will find Dethalbum II to be as brutal as other death metal bands. Those looking for a gateway to the world of metal should start with the band that’s bigger than The Beatles.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars