Triptykon, Eparistera Daimones (review part one)

Recently my interest in Celtic Frost has been revived and, after a little Googling, I discovered that Celtic Frost mainman, Thomas Gabriel Warrior, has started a new musical project called Triptykon.

Having a little spare cash for the first time in ages, and also for some other indefinable reason, I decided that I must actually buy the Triptykon album, Eparistera Daimones. It's possibly the best decision I've made this century.

I imagine that I will have a lot to say about this album, and I doubt I can say it all tonight, so I'll split this review up, probably into two parts.

For those who don't know, Celtic Frost were an innovative heavy metal band who appeared on the scene in the mid-eighties, and – correct me if I'm wrong – basically invented death metal. I do recall an interview in which the journalist was asking Tommy G. about the phrase 'death metal', which he used, so I believe I am correct in saying this. I was, at the time I read that interview, well aware of thrash metal and speed metal. Death metal was basically an outgrowth of thrash metal, with heavy doses of Black Sabbath. Actually, I believe Celtic Frost were influenced by Venom, who I believe were influenced by Motorhead. If I have any of these technical details wrong, I welcome those with more encycolpaedic knowledge than my own enlightening me.

Why were Celtic Frost different? I do think they were different actually. Very different. I was interested in all kinds of metal in my teens years, but started to lose interest at the age of about fifteen, perhaps fourteen. Celtic Frost has been one exception. I still occasionaly croak along to the songs of Morbid Tales, and Into the Pandemonium must rank as one of my all-time favourite albums. But why? Well, that's actually hard to say. It's true that Celtic Frost were different in some explicit ways, that is, overtly experimental, using interesting time signatures and rhythms, borrowing opera singers from somewhere, employing interesting instruments. Tommy G's lyrical turn of phrase was also characteristic. Song titles like Procreation of the Wicked, Return to the Eve, Inner Sanctum and so on, had a consistent and distinctive aesthetic.

What I can't quite explain is this: it seems to me that much heavy metal, while lyrically imaginative, is basically musically unevocative. I seem to remember Sam Raimi being interviewed in a heavy metal magazine, and he was asked if he thought of using heavy metal for horror films. I was a heavy metal fan at the time I read that interview, but even I knew that heavy metal doesn't actually create an atmosphere and would therefore be useless for a horror film, no matter that so many heavy metal bands use horror film lyrics. However, if one thing in particular made Celtic Frost different it was that the lyrics and music gelled in a way that was evocative, imaginative and atmospheric. I just don't know how.

This might sound ridiculous, but I think it might have been Tommy G's guitar sound. Tommy G's guitar did not sound like a guitar. Even with choppy riffs it didn't sound choppy. It didn't sound even vaguely like a stringed instrument. It sounded like something that pulsated. It sounded like the whiplash of an epileptic serpent. It sounded like suns dying in continual explosion. It sounded like an alien entity – like an aural Nyarlathotep. In short, it was the best guitar sound in the history of the world.

Now, Celtic Frost did not appear afraid of taking musical risks, and one of these was 1988 'hair-metal' album Cold Lake. The fans did not like it. It was seen by many in very simplistic terms as a sell-out. I think that Cold Lake is one of the best things that has happened since time began, but I'll have to write more about that later. In short, I didn't lose interest with Cold Lake. I think I generally lost interest at the time of Vanity/Nemesis. I remember I didn't like the cover art, and when I listened to the music, it was like Celtic Frost riffs without the Celtic Frost guitar sound, but with no insane hybridism as in Cold Lake to make it interesting in other ways. The guitar sounded merely like a guitar, albeit a heavy one, and Celtic Frost sounded to me, therefore, too similar to just another metal band. It's quite possible I didn't give that album the chance it deserved.

Anyway, although I have never lost my love of early Frost, I am afraid that I ceased to follow Tommy G's career after that point.

Now, my interest is revived.

Almost everything about Eparistera Daimones is awesome. And that's not a word I use often.

I have played the album a few times now. At first I thought, "This is actually really not bad." Then I thought, "This is actually excellent." Then I sat down and leafed through the CD booklet and thought, "I must tell the world about this."

I do not know when the last time was that I felt so inspired and excited by an album. Maybe last century when Celtic Frost first started. In fact, although I imagine that the entire album is on YouTube now, I recommend wholeheartedly that interested parties buy the CD, the better to experience the kind of excitement that people experienced about music back in the late twentieth century when they could fondle and fetishise the packaging.

The cover and interior art, by renowned Alien artist H.R Giger, suits the mood of the album well. In fact, Giger contributed artwork for the mighty 1985 album To Mega Therion, and, fittingly, it is that album that this most resembles in overall sound and feel.

Opening the booklet up, we find that Tommy G. has not written lyrics – no, he has written "epistles". This is awesome. Now, I'm the first, or perhaps the third to admit, that Tommy G's lyrics don't really stand up as written word. Nonetheless, how can you not love something like the following:

Diseased, the inner sanctum dies
Rhapsodized, before your sightless eyes
Demise, tartarus in disguise
Your words, all but stigmatised
Like a body without soul
And a sacrifice of faith
The desire to be flesh
Yet forced to abdicate

Actually, I think my favourite lyrics so far are from the song 'Descendant':

Seven, seven they are
No gate will shut them out
Like snakes through grass they glide
Like wind, like wind they storm
Fall has swept the fields
The woods will come alive
Heaven and earth converge
And the stars will disappear

That, in fact, stands up on its own.

And as if this is not enough, Tommy G has provided us with wonderfully bombastic commentary on each song. For instance:

It is often the neophytes, the inexperienced 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. It is often egotism beyond any containment which serves to ravage something once hallowed.

This is also awesome.

As to the guitar sound… Somehow Tommy G. and crew have managed to get a sound that captures what was essential in Celtic Frost, but with modern production. The guitar sounds like a guitar – albeit heavy – and like a black Giger serpent.

Now, Tommy G.'s motto at the moment seems to be, "Only death is real", and this is also the title of his recent autobiography. There is a great deal of darkness and despair in the lyrics of this album. However, the effect of listening to it has not, for me, been despair.

I think it was listening to 'Abyss Within My Soul' just an hour or two ago, that it really struck me. The song seemed to rise up around me as immense as the final hideous vortex in Edgar Poe's 'MS. Found in a Bottle', and over the titanic, chugging tide of the riffs, Thomas Gabriel Warrior's chthonic roar echoed again and again:

Rise
Abyss within my soul
Rise
Abyss within my soul

I am not sure I can explain it, but it seemed to me that I had never heard death energy turned into life energy so successfully.

I got up and walked around the room. The colours seemed vivid. My surroundings were fascinating. I wanted to start new creative projects. I felt like going out and reading Ray Brassier's Nihil Unbound. I felt like doing something new for no reason whatsoever.

If there are other people out there making death metal at the moment that is half as good as this, I really need to reacquaint myself with the genre.

Well… end of part one of this review…