If you can handle ‘Requiem’, it will easily be one of the top releases this year. Even when they are playing in unusual combinations, such as with only Grossmann and Vanja Šlajh’s deep rumbling bass, they have no problem adapting to their musical surroundings. The orchestra cooperates closely with the band. That is another part of the genius of ‘Requiem’: the Metropole Orkest isn’t just there to provide an extra layer. It is truly a dark symphony, with an orchestra that emphasizes the bass range and includes a metal band. As a listener, you have to be able to absorb the immense darkness in the compositions, but if you are, chances are ‘Requiem’ will not let you go. Just like any other Triptykon release, ‘Requiem’ isn’t easy to grasp. Particularly gorgeous is the fragile minute and a half guitar solo Santura plays around the three-minute mark, but the climax that slowly unfolds from around twenty minutes in is a work of pure genius as well. ![]() Most of the track is instrumental, with only a few lines of lyrics, though Heraghi and the choir contribute some otherworldly, wordless melodies. Huge single-note doom riffs and drums that sound like Hannes Grossmann hits them with sledgehammers, in conjunction with an elegant, but not too bombastic orchestral arrangement and tortured vocals. At times, it feels like a variation on the final movement of Mahler’s ninth symphony, only with an avantgardist metal band as a part of the orchestra. ![]() The main attraction of ‘Requiem’, however, is the 32 minute second act ‘Grave Eternal’, written in 20 specifically for this performance. Heraghi is a great singer, but she also appears to have an understanding for Triptykon’s inherent grotesquerie. A singer with a more classical background would probably lack the edge needed for the song. The sound is far more balanced and while I initially found Tunisian singer Safa Heraghi to be an odd choice for the female lead vocals, she turns out to be perfect. On that particular album, the track always seemed a better idea than an actual song to me, but after hearing this live arrangement, the truth was probably that nobody was quite sure how to mix gothic doom metal with an orchestra at the time. ‘Requiem’ kicks off with the oldest act ‘Rex Irae’, which was originally released on Celtic Frost’s 1987 ‘Into The Pandemonium’ album. Santura emphasizes space and the low end of the spectrum. With a band like Triptykon, where you can often make a sandwich between guitar strums, but somehow without ever moving even close to drone territory, the temptation is to have the orchestra fill in the blanks, but the arrangement that Dark Fortress and Alkaloid frontman Florian Magnus Maier made with Fischer and guitarist V. Using an orchestra does nothing to weaken the minimalism that characterizes most of Thomas Gabriel Fischer’s compositions. The Dutch Metropole Orkest helps add extra depth to the music.Įven more so than studio albums ‘Eparistera Daimones’ and ‘Melana Chasmata’, ‘Requiem’ is a highly inaccessible work. ![]() Three tracks won’t sound like enough to even fill an EP, but keep in mind that the second act is over half an hour long. It combines the first and third acts of a requiem released during two completely different stages of Celtic Frost’s career with a brand new second act. Of course, a conventional live album was never the set-up of ‘Requiem’. No announcements, hardly any crowd noise, two thirds of the material never played before or since… Even live albums aren’t done in a conventional way by Triptykon.
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