Triptykon - Eparistera Daimones

Genre:
Metal: Doom, Funeral, Sludge

Name:
Triptykon

Album:
Eparistera Daimones, (2010)

Only Death Is Real

Celtic Frost were a - well, not a household name, but they were the Pioneers of their genre. They have fallen apart time and time again, but their last release, Monotheist (which I shall review in due course), reached new pinnacles of sheer brilliance. But more on that another time.

It seemed that, upon the "obliteration of Celtic Frost", we had lost a brilliant musician: Tom Gabriel Warrior. But no, I rejoiced upon hearing that, nearly instantaneously, Triptykon was in the works. And when I heard that their album was to be like Monotheist, I knew that this was going to be either brilliant or a failure in all forms.

It did not disappoint. From the first riff I was hooked. The opener, Goetia, is a tirade against "the feeble human quest for salvation within the mass-delusion named 'religion'" is eleven minutes of pure bliss, bar the subject matter, and it is followed by more in the same vein. But it gets even better.
It is when you reach track seven, Myopic Empire, that you realise just how amazing this band is. The lyrics, chanting the name, are strangely hooking, and the "grand piano section" is brilliant, showing that Triptykon are not exclusively stuck to the bottom three strings of the guitar (although they show extensive skill there), but can flit to other instruments. This exquisite track is followed by the best of the album: My Pain. I'm a bit of a sucker for tragic love songs, so this naturally captured my heart, but Simone Vollenweider's vocals once again seize my ears and hold them to the speakers. In short, this is acoustically, lyrically and completely brilliant.
It ends on the longest track of the album, approaching twenty minutes long: Prolonging. This is lyrically very typical of the album, showing Warrior's bubbling hate (this can also be seen in the 'Gratitude' section, included at the end of this post). It is a brilliant ending, with guitar lower than Hermes Conrad's limbo pole that captivates and compels and courses with venom.

Now, the album itself is brilliantly presented, with cover art by H. R. Geiger (Who also did the cover for To Mega Therion and some work for the Alien movies), named 'Vlad Tepes'. Each song also has comments, which, although informative, are a little patronising, arrogant and a tad too elevated for my liking: "It is often the neophytes, the inexperience and unproven ones, those who shine solely by means of a carefully crafted and yet utterly inflated act, who ultimately and unwittingly reveal themselves to be the ingrate vermin" is but one sentence.
But the overall feel of the album is that of anger: Warrior is still caught up with collapse of Celtic Frost. And here is an obvious clue as to the boiling vat of pure hatred that is fuelling Warrior (and doing it rather well): "Those who opposed us, those who lied to tarnish our name, those who interfered, those who lacked faith, may they relish being pathetically self-appointed divinity and continue to decay within their own festering ignorance". And that's from the gratitude section. Remind me never to piss this guy off.

Rating: 10/10
Summary: Dark, dark album very well expressed.
Lyrical Themes: Anger, Religion, More Anger, Love (just the once), Even More Anger.

Track Listing:
1. Goetia
2. Abyss Within My Soul
3. In Shrouds Decay
4. Shrine
5. A Thousand Lies
6. Descendant
7. Myopic Empire
8. My Pain
9. The Prolonging

Myspace
Or: Alternative
Download
But I'd recommend actually getting a hard copy of the CD. The commentary is very interesting and eyeopening, and (unintentionally) downright amusing. Plus, it's legal.