Triptykon - Melana Chasmata (2014)^{Release ID: 6293}

The pounding fury of album opener Tree of Suffocating Souls indicates immediately that this is anything but your standard doom metal album.  Delivered with an almost punky attitude, the track hammers its way into your brain and leaves a memorable benchmark at this very early stage of the album.  If you have heard anything else by Triptykon you will already know to expect variety from any offering of their's.  Previous album Eparistera Daimones enchanted my ears well enough to make it a read that I was going to be straight into Melana Chasmata at the earliest opportunity and it is just as endearing in its own twisted little way.

There's a patient intensity to their 2014 offering that in no small part is obvious due to the gothic leanings of their sound.  Between Tom's monotone and grim delivery alongside the ethereal beauty of Simone Vollenweider's siren like performance on Boleskine House there exists a perfect marriage of opposites.  Likewise the death metal like chug of the guitar on Altar of Deceit is framed by the hazy psychadelia of the other guitar as it drones on throughout the track creating an atmosphere of subtle tension, of fury being kept on a leash, steering it into consistent and ordered release that builds around the song.

I don't really get along with Celtic Frost that well in all honesty.  I don't hate their output but it has yet to set my world on fire and as a result I came to Triptykon a tad pensive about what to expect.  In comparison though Tom's later years are seeing him produce much more creative and expansive material in my opinion.  The album title is Greek for "Black Chasm" and this perfectly describes what the album is.  Vast in scope without becoming trendy or boring.  Full of perilous content and glowering talent, each track offers variety of pace and tempo yet never leaves me feeling lost or unsure of how we got to any particular point.  

Replete with Giger artwork on the cover Melena Chasmata offers a whole experience on all fronts and shows a band that is more developed and mature than their debut offering.  It feels forbearing without ever being constraining, the songs genuinely do breathe in a dense atmosphere that stimulates the brain beyond the music itself.  Tracks build overtly and you find yourself encouraging them in your mind to develop branches and off-shoots and (in my brain at least) they often take that direction you are predicting.  The sublime growth of Aurorae is a great example of this, starting off almost as an instrumental before a short progression of verses that build the lush notes of the guitars making this my favourite track on the whole album.

Fischer's range goes between grim, almost spoken-word delivery to rabid and demented ramblings.  Again, they always feel controlled and measured to suit the overall intensity and atmosphere of a track at any given time.  They integrate into the gloomy picture that is painted and flow with the brushstrokes perfectly.  The band feel unified and their obvious experience shows across all nine tracks with the guitar work being of particular note, but the percussion and bass section but in one hell of shift also.

At just shy of hour and ten minutes the album feels quite long despite my enjoyment of it and a couple of tracks do seem to go on for a bit longer than necessary, over-egging the sombreness a tad and oustaying their welcome a bit as a result.  Still mighty fine stuff though.

After disbanding Celtic Frost on a musical high with the doom-inspired Monotheist, Thomas Gabriel Fischer formed Triptykon, a band who would continue to build on that style of metal. This is their second album and it's a bit of a monster, weighing in at well over an hour and embracing several different styles from doom to death to thrash metal and with a vein of Eighties-influenced gothic rock running through a lot of the runtime.

Tree of Suffocating Souls kicks things off in old-school Celtic Frost fashion, complete with one of Tom's trademark "death grunts" and a killer of a central riff. TGF has always had a unique guitar sound that is really well suited to either thrash, death or doom metal and it sounds awesome on this opening track, getting the album off to a great start. Next track, Boleskine House (the house that used to be the home of Aleister Crowley which was bought by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in the 1970's) is a classic of eerie, gothic doom metal, featuring sublime female vocals from Simone Vollenweider. The out and out doom metal of Altar of Deceit is crushing, the uptempo, downtuned death metal of Breathing is punishing and any other cliches I can throw at them, except they aren't cliches if they're true.

Aurorae sounds like Killing Joke chilling with Billy Duffy and Andrew Eldritch after a particularly strong bong hit as the album's gothic content hits it's max and being a huge 80's goth rock fan, I love it! Demon Pact is doomy, but with a ritualistic atmosphere, created mainly by the drums, as if the band are trying to summon an ancient Babylonian demon. In the Sleep of Death is my least favourite track on the album, sounding a little bit cheesy lyrically, despite it's musical weight. Black Snow is a chugging behemoth, sounding like a slowed-down track from CF's To Mega Therion heyday, telling the tale of a dying tyrant facing up to his imminent demise. Waiting closes the album in a relatively gentle manner, with faintly weird triple vocals and an ethereal atmosphere.

So, a pretty great album with plenty of variety and songwriting skill from an extreme metal veteran, inspiring for all us old bastards out there!