Imperial Triumphant - Spirit of Ecstasy (2022)^{Release ID: 38530}

I try to remain open minded when it comes to my metal. If my recent experience with White Ward proved anything to me, it was that I shouldn't accept my initial response to an album as gospel. I thought I was going to hate that album after a single attempt, but after numerous listens, I now consider it be a great release. To say that my first Imperial Triumphant attempt was disconcerting is understating things. Spirit of Ecstasy is an abrasive and chaotic experience, and an album that truly earns the Avant-Garde Metal genre tag. It's like someone threw dissonant death metal, avant-garde jazz and a whole bunch of effects and noise into a blender and turned it up to the max, or so it seemed on first listen. Given the huge praise the release is getting, I committed myself to coming to grips with it as much as I could before deciding how I really feel about it. What's the result? Well, I definitely now have a large amount of appreciation for what these guys have achieved. Many sections of the album are downright brilliant, and the musicianship to pull something like this off is obviously of the highest order. Tracks like Chump Change and Merkurius Gilded have opened up to me quite a lot, to the point where I like a lot more of their running time than I don't. But therein lies the problem for me. There is so much going here, that every track has parts that are, if not entirely unlistenable, just not very entertaining for me beyond novelty. I don't like jazz at all, and it's not going to make it sound better to me if it's performed in an abrasive fashion, or combined with screams and intense percussion. For every moment on this album that I dig, there's another that is just too much. Perhaps others just have a much greater tolerance for chaos than I do.

2022 RANKING (61 releases so far)

47. Negative Plane - The Pact... - 3 stars

48. Imperial Triumphant - Spirit of Ecstasy - 3 stars

49. Kreator - Hate über Alles - 3 stars

2022 DEATH RANKING (15 releases so far)

13. Undeath - It's Time... to Rise From the Grave - 3.5 stars

14. Imperial Triumphant - Spirit of Ecstasy - 3 stars

15. Needless - The Cosmic Cauldron - 3 stars

I think I shocked myself more than anyone else when I listened to, and enjoyed Imperial Triumphant's 2020 album Alphaville. It was technical death metal, but of the heavily avant-garde variety. It may have been the closest thing that you may possibly imagine if the term "progressive jazz metal" were to be formulated. The combination of uncommon song structures, heavily dissonant riffage, obtuse lyricism and horn instrumentation that sounds borrowed straight from free jazz is a sound that should not work...and yet it did.

And so it should come as no surprise that we find ourselves here. Spirit of Ecstasy, despite it's avant-garde genre tag, is not that far removed from the multitude of technical death metal bands with their songwriting techniques. In fact, I would define this record as being the one that most closely resembles technical death metal. And my goodness what an album it turned out to be! Spirit of Ecstasy is a more thought provoking album than Alphaville and does so by going for a sound that is still demanding, but somehow more accessible and more tuneful than ever before.

First and foremost, the jazzy fusion elements of Alphaville are lacking in quantity and are instead replaced by more classical inspired passages perhaps borrowed from the Igor Stravinsky playbook. The ending of "Merkurius Gilded", the entirety of the quasi instrumental "Bezumnaya"; these tracks are hauntingly beautiful. The heaviness of the grooves on "Chump Change", "Metrovertigo" and "Tower of Glory, City of Shame" are heart stopping. While the first real incorporation of jazzy horns takes place on "Merkurius Gilded", and the instrumental "In The Pleasure of Their Company" sounds like a free form jazz solo. All of this seems like it would be overwhelming for someone like myself, and yet Imperial Triumphant never lose sight of their identity on this record. It is quite the marvel and well worth hearing just for this.

The technicality is not meant to be used as a shield for bad compositions. Instead, it furthers them by exemplifying this records most chilling moments. This unfortunately brings us into the lyrics. And look, Imperial Triumphant have a way with words on this album that is quite impressive; resorting to high brow references instead of spelling it out for the listener. But when the words are so important to the compositions, why on earth would they be pushed back so far into the mix? I cannot see a discernable reason for this beyond "it just want tech-death bands do" and I'm not buying it. 

But if you can overlook that, you will find an album of immense quality. I'm not sure how much of it I would listen to outside of a full album experience, but Imperial Triumphant are further developing their identity beyond a bog standard tech-death formula and I cannot wait to see where this band takes their sound next.

Best Songs: Chump Change, Tower of Glory, City of Shame, Death on a Highway, In the Pleasure of Their Company