Shattered again

Triptykon - Shatter

EPs are an underrated and often misunderstood medium of communicating an artist's music. This should come as no surprise as most bands view EPs as a wastebasket were they get rid of undesirable songs, songs that are not on the same level as their usual work, songs that don't fit on full albums, songs that are different etc. One of the exceptions have always been Celtic Frost. They introduced themselves with two more than classic EPs showing that a short album can be a full experience when treated seriously. 

Triptykon couldn't be a different case. The band states from the beginning that Shatter should be treated as a piece that accompanies Eparistera Daimones and that makes sense. The title track is a melancholic and melodic track based on female vocals, I am the Twilight is a heavy and claustrophobic nightmare, while the ambience of Crucifixus works well in the context of the record. The point of including the Celtic Frost tracks is  debatable. Yet since they opted to do it, they do it in a majestic way to say the least. The two songs are heavier and better than ever...and these are songs written before 26 years or so.

Me, I will go for the complete sessions boxed set as this would reveal the full experience Triptykon have to offer.

Cromagnon - Orgasm

Experimental band that was active during late sixties and was way ahead of its time. Minimal, psychedelic, folk, noise, industrial rock from 1969. 

Some of those terms and styles had not been invented until even decades later.  Adding the horrific vocals that range from black metal shrieks to moaning, screaming and chanting we get an album that is frightening even by today's standards.  

Julian Cope noted on opening track Caledonia..." Now, when you stick the needle into the groove that is opener, "Caledonia", you'll immediately think you're listening to Einsturzende Neubaten gone black metal, then you'll realize you're WRONG and that there was no reference points such as that available in 1968." 

Absolutely correct. Today, in 2010 we have the reference points to describe Cromagnon's music. I can't even imagine the reaction of the listeners back in late sixties when confronted with the beast that is Orgasm. This is progressive and forward thinking music by definition.      

Seraphic Decay

Seraphic Decay was an american death metal (mostly) label in early nineties. It was relatively short lived but managed to have quality underground releases during its existence. The label released works (mostky 7'') by Rigor Mortis, Incantation, Mortician, Derketa, Disgrace, Agathocles, Disgrace, Xysma, and other underground bands between 1990 and 1992. Those are difficult to find today, they were sought after by collectors even back in the day.

Seraphicdecay.com is a site run by an obviously dedicated death metaller  and is a job well done. Streaming audio, photos, bios and all the information that is needed for all the label's releases. Not all the bands were great but this is not the point. The site is a great monument of a period that has been crucial for death metal. Seraphic Decay focused on the underground at the time when death metal started loosing orientation startled by the metal's mainstream lights. No wonder the label deteriorated by the time death metal became a completely lost cause somewhere in 1992. Death metal started loosing it from 1990 but 1991 for me marks the end of its golden era. Entombed were using Army of Lovers' singer for their Stranger Aeons video, MTV air play became a cause and even though there were excelent underground bands going on, the genre had lost its teeth. The momentum was lost once and for all. 

I realize that the underground status of a band or musician has become relative. What I didn't realize is when this has happened. Maybe it is the normal course of things as time passes, yesterday's underground to be today's mainstream but I still don't like it. Examples are plenty and one of them would be Steve DiGiorgio that started with Sadus and has worked since with legends like Autopsy, mainstream thrash bands like Testament, viking whatever bands like Vintersorg, hideous power metal bands like every power metal band on earth and Sebastian Bach!!!

Of course there's nothing to restrain an accomplished musician on certain music forms when he doesn't want to be restrained but a hired gun is light years away from a notable artist... and I like to view music as an artform.

East and West

The cultural differences between different regions of the world are today far less than many years before but in general they are still there. Globalization, the constant technological evolution, the mixing of cultures and people, political power games etc have played a great role in creating a homogenized global culture system but when one scratches the surface of the TV laden brainwashed today's world, the fundamental differences are still there. Signs of this fact can be found anywhere.

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The way the americans perceive black metal (at least today) is way different from the way europeans do. Actually the thing came to a point that often the music americans think of as black metal is no bm at all. Perhaps it is difficult for a country with a very recent and rootless cultural history to perceive forms of music that have a spiritual and cultural background that is rooted thousands of years back. The early americans wasted decades trying to systematically extinguish any source of the previously prevalent culture in their(?) soil. All these in order to conclude to today's civilization of the burger and coke. I realize that I am oversimplifying things but I think I am not altering the picture. 

So for most of the americans black metal is just another form of music, just a sequence of sounds (preferably the sounds of norwegian bands from early '90s) and all the rest be damned. Lyrics are irrelevant, the philosophical and spiritual background is considered unnecessary and so on. 

Of course not all people are the same and there are obviously individuals that are talented enough to break out of the norm. Such individuals have created remarkable art the last few years that has mistakenly been described as black metal. Using the basic sound of norwegian bands blended with hardcore which is mostly where those bands come from and an amazing urban aesthetic that passes from the lyrics to the overall aura of the music, they recorded some of the most amazing music I have ever heard. It is difficult to categorize it but none should care about categorizing great art.

Woe head towards that direction with Quietly, Undramatically but this is a record that leaves me puzzled. Their debut A Spell for the Death of Man was a masterfully crafted black metal record. This one adopts the urban ways described before plus some of those parts that most people call shoegaze and these are the parts I wholeheartedly hate and ruin a large part of the record. Someone wrote that the proper title for the album should be Quietly, Melodramatically and maybe it is dragging it to far but it is still indicative of the albums aura. No way the record is bad...it is maybe that I expected something different from a band that started playing what themselves described as 'raw, sloppy satanic black metal'. Six words from which only 'metal' applies to Woe today. On the other hand it's not the band's fault that I am seldom in the mood of listening to such music...and when I am, I go for Ludicra that are the undisputed kings of their kind.

And if I see another record with trees/branches/leaves/mountains on the cover I swear I am going to set a nice fire to the nearest forest.

Xasthur is far from being a band I like. Furthermore it isn't a band I usually think in relation with bands such the ones I described above. Yet the following video is very much in line with the urban and desolate feeling they incorporate. Plus it is very good.
 

From the West to the East

Three records I heard recently that had a certain eastern vibe and are worth mentioning (one of them actually deserves all the praise I can give)...

Weapon - From The Devil's Tomb

Weapon's second full album came as an apocalyptic shock devastating anything that dared stand on it's way, leaving only ashes behind. The fact that a band I followed closely for years and had great faith in their potential, managed to shock me with the extremely high quality of their new work is amazing. I have written before that I consider this the second best black metal record of the year, as I reserve the first position for Deathspell Omega but I think that even if DsO deliver a record of the caliber I expect, Weapon are going to give them a hard time. 

Drakonian Paradigm was an excellent record but it pales in comparison with the new one. It is brutal when needed, mystical at all times, calculated and precise but not mechanical. Furthermore there's an oriental occult aura prevalent throughout the whole album with eastern melodies that makes From the Devil's Tomb a poisonous elixir that should be approached with caution and mostly with the respect it deserves. The eastern influence is integrated in the music and doesn't act as a foreign part pretentiously added in the songs., leaving no chance to any of the  usual imbeciles to use the word 'folk' in relation to the album.So, this is one of the best  (true) black metal albums of the last ten years and a fine addition to the Devil's weaponry. Praise Satan.        

Birch Mountain - Silence Is Complete

Death metal from sweden with ties with an old swedish band called Egypt and it is not old school. The damned trees are on the cover again but I hope the two band members are there to burn them down so that complete silence is achieved.

The Egypt connection probably explains a lot about the eastern influence on the album that is omnipresent but again it is nicely integrated to the band's music and overall character so that it sounds perfectly natural. They don't overdo it with the speed which is a wise choice considering the atmosphere they want to create. All in all a very good record and one of the best 'modern' death metal jobs I have heard lately. I quote 'modern' so that no one will thing this is about one of those clinical and plastic abominations that pass as modern death metal. The album is available for free download by the band so all ye beggars can head over here.     

 

Melechesh - The Epigenesis

Melechesh for me have always been a band promising more than they delivered. As time passed and the promises were not fulfilled I learned to take what they were offering never asking for more. Nevertheless it is a pity when a band with potential restricts itself to just good works when they could make great or monumental records. The Epigenesis is not an exception. Ghouls Of Nineveh that starts the record is the best track on it. Founded on a robust slow paced rhythm it develops in a freeform manner that as the song progresses it sounds like a band jamming, free of the restrictions of certain genres of music. Those restrictions appear on the rest of the album when the band tries to match the thrash or black metal rules with the middle eastern/folk elements. When this fucking word ('folk' that is) appears it ruins my whole listening experience and unfortunately Melechesh are often approaching dangerously the borders of folk metal, a genre that I think is more of a caricature than a proper music style. I will always doubt the usefulness of folk interludes or instrumental songs, I will always be negative in the use of traditional instruments in black metal. I have to deal with the fucking bouzouki in my everyday life in this fuckholle that is my home. I don't need it in my black metal. 

All in all Melechesh once more didn't deliver what they promised and could. And I'm afraid this time my patience is almost over. I think they could benefit by studying what Weapon and Birch Mountain have done in order to incorporate the eastern element in their music effortlessly and naturally.       

AMSG

 

Prototype

The end of this month will bring a new EP by Triptykon, a few months after the Eparistera Daimones debut. The EP titled Shatter will contain two new tracks plus the electronic/ambient piece Crucifixus that was the first ever track we ever heard by the band on their fuckspace. It was also the only Triptykon track that flirted with mediocrity. Shatter will also feature two Celtic Frost tracks recorded live. This is a decision I can't really understand. A new chapter in the artistic life of Tom Fischer has started and I don't see the point of recycling what already has been done many years ago.

On the other hand I would never complain about the inclusion of Crucifixus despite its obvious mediocrity compared to the rest of the band's material. I always liked and respected that Fischer doesn't discard songs and ideas with the ease our fast food epoch dictates to. I admire his ability to toy and experiment with pieces that have been in his mind seemingly for ages until they find their perfect form. In that context I consider myself lucky that a couple of years ago I happened to find the 2002 Celtic Frost demo entitled Prototype, that contained the first recordings after the band's reunion. Here we can find the first blueprints and ideas of a band searching its inner self after years of absence never defying its iconoclastic nature. This is not a recording that is meant to be heard as a normal demo. Obviously it was not meant to be heard by none other except the band. It is mostly an experiment as half of the songs have nothing to do with metal. Instead there is trip hop, electronica, ambient and hip hop on a track titled Get Wicked that is based on Procreation of the Wicked. On the (more) metal side there are excellent songs like November that was later transformed to Obscured and included on Monotheist. Same was the case with The Dying I that is none other than Drown in Ashes also from Monotheist and Relinquished Body is featured on Eparistera Daimones reworked as Myopic Empire.

The past has shown that Fisher is one of the few that stick on their ideas working on them, shaping them until they become as they were envisioned. Not a common thing to do nowadays with bands first conceiving the idea of a riff at 10:00 o'clock, recording it at 10:05 and that's it. Then again that's one of the traits of true artists and artists/visionaries are needed today to make a difference in the flood of plain musicians.

Succumb...

Weapon - From the Devil's Tomb

Birch Mountain - Silence Is Complete

Zombiefication - Midnight Stench
Dethroned Christ - Roots of Ancient Evil
Lord Of Doubts - Lord Of Doubts

AMSG