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Triptykon: Eparistera daimones

13/05/10 || Altmer

What famous bands has the Helvetic Confederation brought upon us, globally dominating metal brethren? The answer is, not quite that many – but definitely a few noteworthy ones. Coroner is one that jumps to mind. Samael is another. Everybody’s favourite folk metallers Eluveitie hail from Swissland as well. And the biggest name of ‘em all – Celtic Frost, the legendary 80s thrash metal band. That is, if you believe the hordes of tr00 nekro black metallers that were influenced by Celtic Frost’s (at the time) unique sound.

Then Celtic Frost went apeshit gay on our asses with “Cold Lake”, and Tommy G was not seen again under the Celtic Frost moniker for years. And when he did put something out, it was “Monotheist”, which in no way resembles the thrash metal with sympho-experimentation that CF used to play in ye ole days, before Warrior thought emulating glam metal was a good idea (for all you aspiring hairspray-using metalheads out there – glam metal was never a good idea. Fuck ye all). And this here album sounds more like that Monotheist album, than it resembles the Celtic Frost of yore, and I’m not sure which way my penis is supposed to swing in this case.

I am, however, leaning towards the opinion that Old Celtic Frost should be worshiped above New Celtic Frost records (and this isn’t very different from newer CF, anyhow). The reason is the bloody tempo. This thing is slow – which is good if you like sludgy doomy metal, with a bit of an atmospheric gothic tinge – but who would actually like this? It’s not bad by any means but it’s not really interesting. I’m not stroking my dick with this album, and that can’t be a good sign. There is nothing altogether bad to be found on this disc though – there are some faster moments, like on opener “Goetia”, which are massively appealing – but why does this album have to drag so much? It’s 78 minutes long, and has no reason to be 78 minutes long. The last song is 19 minutes and not even Opeth could make a song like that sound appealing. This album needs a lifespan of about 50 minutes (that’s as much as I can listen to before wanting to turn it off). It’s too fucken long for its own good and this obscures the possibility for people to sit through the bad material just to get to the good bits.

Of course, musicianship is present still. The guitars sound fantastic and Tommy Gun is an ace riffer. His vocals are pretty sweet too – raspy, thrashy, but with the needed aggression and venom not to sound ridiculous. I like that shit, good work Tombola. Rhythm section sounds good too. There is even some piano stuff with a chick singing, and it’s pretty good truth be told (but nothing you haven’t heard before in this genre). There ain’t anything that these motherfuckers don’t perform at least competently, if not admirably, but it’s just not interesting enough for me to spin it 24/7.

In other words, if you are in for a dose of Celtic Frost songs played basically at half-tempo, with some My Dying Bride-ish atmosphere sprinkled around, you will lap this up. Those of you who are interested in what post-CF Tommy is up to, should at least give it a cursory spin, because it’s all-around solid enough to warrant a few close listens. But don’t expect to be blown away like “To Mega Therion” once did, because this is not on that level of awesome. This one hangs out with “Monotheist” in Okay But Nothing Really Special Land, and I’m quite content for it to settle there for the remainder of time (it’s not amazing, but it’s a whole lot better than “Cold lake”). Have fun, guys.

Information
Released: 2010
Label: Prowling Death Records
Website: www.triptykon.net
Band
Thomas Gabriel Fischer: vocals, guitar
V. Santura: guitars, vocals
Vanja Slanh: bass
Norman Lonhard: drums

Tracklist
01. Goetia
02. Abyss Within My Soul
03. In Shrouds Decayed
04. Shrine
05. A Thousand Lies
06. Descendant
07. Myopic Empire
08. My Pain
09. The Prolonging

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