A spare drum beat at a plodding pace… and then, the massively heavy, down-tuned distorted bass guitar introduce the dark minimalism of Thomas Gabriel Fischer’s TRIPTYKON, on this, their first EP and second release of 2010. Here, the artistic continuation of the late great CELTIC FROST awaits the curious seeker. Besides sheer heaviness, one facet of Gabriel’s prior work is particularly concentrated in TRIPTYKON: the biomechanical vision of Giger, to which TRIPTYKON seems intent on becoming the aural counterpart. The opening track, ‘Shatter’, is marvelously adorned with a luxuriant, clean female vocal in the chorus. Typically, I would despise some such addition with extreme prejudice (not to suggest any misogyny on my part, quite the contrary actually), yet, here, and perhaps it’s my openness to Warrior’s aesthetic pretenses, I find myself inescapably drawn deeper in the building of layered, voluptuous complexity. After the strong opener, the second track, ‘I Am the Twilight’, falls flat. It doesn’t move me, and I don’t give a fuck. It’s a similar situation to some of the doom yawners from "Eparistera Daimones". Next, there’s another TRIPTYKON original here, some kind of VANGELIS-esque futuristic soundtrack stuff that’s really neat in its own way. The disc is completed by TRIPTYKON covering two live FROST classics, ‘Dethroned Emperor’ (featuring DARKTHRONE’s Nocturno Culto on guest vocals) and ‘Circle Of The Tyrants’. Both are decent, though there’s definitely something off about them – the guitar tuning is a little warbly and the energy seems diffuse, almost drunken. And there is this fucking annoying metallic, scraping, ringing sound on parts of ‘Circle Of The Tyrants’ – not sure exactly what it is, but it sounds like total shit. On a humorous note, it sounds like Tom might actually be crying out "Sharon!", like dear old Ozzy, during the songs reflective finale. www.triptykon.net, www.myspace.com/triptykonofficial, www.centurymedia.com