TRIPTYKON - Melana Chasmata (2014)

Genre(s): Doom/Death/Black Metal

Label: Prowling Death Records (distributed by Century Media)

Rating: 9.5/10

Triptykon, born out of the ruins of Celtic Frost, was Thomas Gabriel Fischer starting over, and he couldn't have done a better job with their debut, Eparistera Daimones. All their members are quality people, having met them myself at a concert. Tom seems to have ditched the "Warrior" moniker this time around. Anyway, Triptykon are one of the heaviest and most interesting bands around today, and this album proves it.

Perhaps the first thing you will notice about Melana Chasmata is the production. The drums and bass are perfectly recorded. The first song is "Tree of Suffocating Souls," and it is a brutal one. The tuning is low and the guitars are huge, and there's that signature Tom Fischer guitar tone. This is definitely Triptykon. The picking rhythm is great in the chorus. "Believe in me, I am your lie/I am deceit disguised/I am your lie" sticks out to me, the last line being the chorus. There is an acoustic solo followed by an electric solo. The acoustic solo has some odd chorus effect on it. Later, when the chaos settles down, the bass is all that's audible, and the verse kicks back in. The song has a delightfully weird and quiet ending. "Boleskine House" starts with acoustic guitar, which is supplanted by electric guitar that then fades away. Vanja's bass comes in, and then Tom Fischer's vocals. Some female vocals are heard, provided by Simone Vollenweider. After this, V. Santura screams over some distorted arpeggio. Then some low-tuned, chunky, crushing palm-muted, downstroked, mid-tempo guitar starts up. Then abruptly, it stops. Bass again. Tom, Simone, V. Santura, palm-muted chunking. Following this, Simone sings an extended section, and there's a rather melodic solo. After a duet between Fischer and Vollenweider, the heavy guitars come back in and end the song.

"Altar of Deceit" is another ultra-heavy song, with the intro vacillating between two or three different notes, until the verse kicks in and it's palm-mute city again. The guitars on this album, especially this song, will ruin you. Around 4:30 it quiets to bass, and sort of ambient electric guitar that alternates between background and foreground. One of them has wah (it sounds like Fischer), and starts soloing, and it returns to the intro riff. Then a sort of bridge riff, and the chorus, and it ends. Track four, "Breathing," starts with some light distortion, and then the miring darkness takes over. This is a fast, dissonant, chaotic song, at least in the verse. The chorus has groove. Later on, a thrashy riff appears, almost like a sped-up "Dethroned Emperor" style riff. This lets way into the chaotic section again, with an equally insane solo by Fischer, followed by a solo by Santura. An awesome riff happens around the 5:00 mark, it leads to the songs ending.

"Aurorae," the sixth track, starts off with a simple and soft drumbeat, followed by some guitar with the volume knob turned down. Another track of guitar, this time totally clean with some delay on it, appears. The distorted guitar gets a little heavier. Fischer's voice is layered in harmonising tracks, and it makes for something really cool, and different. That leads into full-on, distorted guitar. "A spirit wasting away" he repeats over and over.There's a solo that I can't tell if it's Fischer or Santura, but my guess is Fischer. And the song ends abruptly. Then there's "Demon Pact," which features some synth programming, with the beating of toms under it, and then the strike of a guitar string and harmonised vocals. Then this quiets to synth, and heavy guitar comes in suddenly with Fischer's snarling vocals. There's a very interesting part where the bass has flanger over it and two notes are picked. Fischer sings "Adora deum tuum, creatorem tuum/My lord redeemer/I shall deny you entry into my mind" and in crash the guitars.

The next song, "In the Sleep of Death," is a slow affair; at 3:42, it gets very heavy, with the chunky low guitars palm-muting their way into your brain. Fischer sings in a despairing manner, one such that it's odd to hear Fischer sing like that. It eventually picks up a bit in speed, but a track of clean guitar keeps going underneath.Some guitar parts that sound like they were manipulated with e-bows come in later, and it reverts to the "Emily, you were the blood in my veins" part. Thus ends the song. Next up is the longest song on this opus, "Black Snow." It starts off with sparse, lightly distorted arpeggiation. Then the more heavily guitars come in, but softly, and feedback. This song has a definitive rhythm in the beginning. Then an aggressive thrash/doom mix in the vocallised part of the riff. The layered vocals over the part that follows are brilliant. The part at the 3:30 part isn't especially dark, but it somehow works perfectly. His clean vocals, I've always thought, are brilliant; they're almost darker than his snarled vocals. This song alternates schizophrenically between ultra-doomy, to ritualistically meditative. This may be Triptykon's defining song. Certainly my favourite off the album. I absolutely adore the part where Fischer repeats "under stars enthroned." It's from a part of the lyrics I particularly like, "Every step I take, life recedes/Under stars enthroned, everlasting night." Yes, definitely my favourite Triptykon song.

The final track, "Waiting," starts off with a female voice saying "time." And then slowly picked bass comes in.more of the female vocals, with what may be Fischer whispering behind it. Then Fischer comes in singing cleanly. There follows some clean guitar soloing, with clean guitar arpeggiating behind it. Then heavy guitars come in briefly. Before you know it, the song is over.

I was worried that after a four year wait, I might not like what I heard with Triptykon's new album. Melana Chasmata is everything I dreamed and more. It's more diverse than Eparistera Daimones by quite a bit, and is a  progression upwards. The spanning of multiple genres is still there, but it's more...refined in application now. I think it's a brilliant performance by each band member, and an excellent Giger painting for the cover. It truly fits. This is an album you do not want to miss. Go buy it now at your local record store, or here.