ImpI may be going through a phase of listening to black metal bands that melt my brain rather than just melting my face, but how about something that can do both? Step forward Imperial Triumphant who have been finding ways to invert reality as well as crucifixes for a few years now and have recently wound up at that home for the unrepentant and wilfully obscure, Code666. Imperial Triumphant incorporate the kind of blast beat tirade that would do any leaders of the corpse painted black metal army proud, even masters of the art like Marduk or Urgehal. But they then perform a sickeningly quick sidestep into chaotically off-beat and noxious death metal arrangements that land us right in the middle of the pestilent and avant-garde. With Deathspell Omega being common and, to some extent, fair comparison, Imperial Triumphant delight in producing a brand of black metal that is as disturbing as it is fearsomely fast. Not so much the soundtrack to bleakly frost bitten hills as a gruesome carnival of deranged depravity.

Billed by the label as a collection of early career obscurities, this release actually contains Imperial Triumphant’s main works to date. Shrine To The Trident Throne is a compilation of the band’s only full-length Abominamentvm, independently released in 2012, combined with the two track ‘Goliath’ EP released in October last year. Thankfully both are elevated here from the mire of black metal’s swamp of releases and more firmly into the spotlight they deserve. These two combined works are the band at its best and it’s well worth getting on board now ahead of a whole new full-length planned for next year. Tracks like Manifesto and other tracks like Devs Est Machina begin as raging blasts before switching within seconds to a heavy, pulsing clamour. The blackened pandemonium gets thoroughly infused with death metal as well as jazz. It’s repetitively mesmerising like the best of black metal can be but then gradually evolves with its stomach churning chords and swirling technical mastery.

Imperial Triumphant manage to pull off what the likes of Diocletian and other war death metal bands succeed in doing by creating the awful din of chaos while at the same time deftly tightening their virulent grip inch by inch like some warped, speed-driven Theogonia-era Rotting Christ as if to strangle every last ebb of light from your existence. The Goliath EP finishes the release off nicely with a barrage of noise that wraps itself around you and provides what amounts to a 13 minute sampler for the band’s trademark sound, The insane clamour of this New York-based band is very much its own. Imperial Triumphant is a hybrid sound that manages to impress dark, ugly ceremony into its blasting power. A gigantic, grotesque take on black metal that is as refreshing as it is repugnant to behold.

(8.5/10 Reverend Darkstanley)

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