I’ve been a thrall in Tom’s world for thousands of hours over the past nearly three decades. I do not see that changing any time soon. He has created his kingdom, I shall live in it. I am yours eternally. The deep resounding roar of Tom G. Warrior is back. Crushing riffs supply the ultimate heaviness, and the pace is slow and monstrously slow. Tom is in top form vocally, with both his harshest screams and his spoken tone, and there is a huge bass presence. What more could you hope for? The dual vocal attack is Tom Warrior and V. Santura, but it seems to really be Tom and Tom, with occasional backing vocals by Santura. Tom even pulls his moaned Into The Pandemonium vocal style out of mothballs, done to ill effect once again.

Like everyone else, I took the break up of Celtic Frost hard. So what Triptykon represents is Apollyon Sun revisited. Tom is back with another direction that dictates a new band name, yet this time he promises to build off the last Celtic Frost album (Monotheist). I’ll start at the end with “The Prolonging”, which forgives all trespass into the land of goth, the massively oppressive, rhythmically mesmerizing juggernaut that is perfectly named. Nineteen and a half minutes and it ends to soon. The perfect bookend to album opener “Goetia”. Great riffs, world destroying heaviness, haunting guitar lines, they both have it. I particularly like the plucked notes that are allowed to decay, love the distortion. The darker heavier “Abyss Within My Soul” comes in as track two, and add up those three songs alone and we hit forty minutes. Pepper the disc with a few other gems, like the ferocious and fast “A Thousand Lies”, “Descendant”, with its booming drums, the piano passages and female vocals of “Myopic Empire”, and it makes dealing with the ‘artistic’ creation that is “My Pain”, less so. I could do without “In Shrouds Decayed” as well, but at least there is no one asking Tom to dance and no pools of hyporthermic water are in evidence.

I would be satisfied calling this a Celtic Frost album. Bands have changed far less than this and kept their band name the same. The legend lives on because everyone knows this is really Celtic Frost ongoing. As Frost perishes Triptykon shall live. Tom deserves the benefit of the doubt because his music is always changing, evolving, and I often don’t like his changes on first listen simply because there are changes. I have finally gotten past that personal shortsightedness. I truly loved Eparistera Daimones.

[We also have another opinion of the album available. Use that for possible comments. -Ed. note]

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