Band Line Up 2023

Formed in May 2008 to further develop the darkness invoked by its immediate precursors, seminalblack/extreme metal pioneers Hellhammer and Celtic Frost, Triptykon evolved from a concept for a Celtic Frost side project initiated by Tom Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. Tom Gabriel Warrior), the group’s singer, guitarist, and main songwriter.

Following five years of songwriting and recording sessions, the subsequent release of their acclaimed Monotheist album, and a 125-date world tour, mounting tensions began to cripple the resplendently disinterred Celtic Frost by late 2007. The situation eventually rendered it virtually impossible for Warrior to succeed in convening Celtic Frost for songwriting and rehearsal sessions for the intended follow-up to Monotheist. Vastly disenchanted and loath to resign to inactivity, Warrior resolved to establish what was to be a temporary substitute project designed to develop, record, and perform the music and lyrics he envisioned for the projected album. The core of the initially unnamed group was completed by underground bassist Vanja Slajh (formerly of Swiss black metal project Freitod), a close friend from a past production project.

Very little of today’s extreme metal scene would exist without the influence of Tom Gabriel Warrior. It’s hard to imagine a heavier or more mesmerising band than Triptykon, and the marriage of Tom’s charisma and some of the most pulverizing riffs ever written weaves sublime magic. A near-religious euphoria. – Metal Hammer UK

The dissension within Celtic Frost would ultimately prove to be insurmountable, however, and Warrior left the group on April 2, 2008, due to what his subsequent official statement described as an “ir-resolvable, severe erosion of the personal basis so urgently required to collaborate within a band so unique, volatile, and ambitious“. Warrior later wrote in his blog: “It was not my departure from Celtic Frost which caused the group’s inexorable demise. It was the group’s inexorable demise which caused my departure.“

The envisioned side project was now no longer a mere transient substitute to Celtic Frost but rather the direct descendant. Warrior named it Triptykon, an homage of sorts to the religiously-themed trip-tych paintings of the dark ages, such as Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden Of Earthly Delights (the right panel of which had been used as cover art for Celtic Frost’s Into The Pandemonium album in 1987) or Hans Memling’s The Last Judgment. Moreover, the name “Triptykon” signifies the third and final occult extreme metal group formed by Warrior after Hellhammer and Celtic Frost; i.e., the completion of his very own triptych.

Warrior’s penchant for experimentation has never diminished, but his ability to execute his craft expertly is certainly greater than ever. – Decibel, USA

In late spring of 2008, Celtic Frost’s live guitarist, V. Santura of German black metal group Dark Fortress and progressive metal project Noneuclid, joined Triptykon as a full member. Triptykon’s initial rehearsal sessions, in late 2008, briefly saw Warrior’s long-time friend and former Celtic Frost drummer Reed St. Mark complete the line-up. This configuration proved unsatisfactory, however, and the group subsequently enlisted renowned German progressive drummer Norman Lonhard (Fear My Thoughts, Pigeon Toe).

Triptykon absorbed virtually the entire Celtic Frost infrastructure, including Prowling Death Records Ltd., the group’s own label (and home to Hellhammer and Celtic Frost).

The world of extreme metal has never been this diverse. It’s a testament to Triptykon’s towering strength that Eparistera Daimones has the power to leave its mark in the midst of the thousand bastard offspring of its ultimate originator. – Metal Hammer UK

The recording sessions for Triptykon’s first album, Eparistera Daimones (“to my left, the demons”), began in August 2009, at Santura’s own Woodshed Studio near Landshut, Germany. The album was produced and mixed by Warrior and Santura; it is a persistent development of the virulent and towering musical darkness perpetuated not only by Warrior’s early work but also within his extensive contributions to Monotheist. As was to be expected, about half of the music and lyrics on Eparistera Daimones consists of material originally intended for Monotheist’s successor. This is balanced by much new, original music written by Warrior and Santura since Triptykon’s inception.

Eparistera Daimones was released on March 22, 2010, through Century Media Records, under license by Prowling Death Records Ltd. The album marked a renewed collaboration with legendary Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger, creator of the album’s extraordinary front cover painting. The same month saw the publication of Only Death Is Real (Bazillion Points Books, New York) Warrior’s second book detailing Hellhammer’s existence and the inception of Celtic Frost. Audiences and media met both releases with praise of the highest order.

Fischer is one of the few people in the music world able to back up his truckloads of self-important pronouncements and defiant attitude with worthy, capital-A Art. A masterpiece of sleepless, timeless, crawling primal doom, not so much better than their peers as above them, in a place they’ll likely never tread. – Blabbermouth.net, USA

Triptykon subsequently played close to 100 lauded concerts all across Europe and the UK, Japan, the United States, Canada, and Iceland. Among many other notable appearances, this included a curatorship and headliner slot of the renowned Roadburn Festival, a headliner slot on one of Wacken Open Air’s main stages, and a co-headliner tour of North America. Shatter, Triptykon’s visionary and highly acclaimed first video, was released in fall of 2010, along with the EP of the same title. In parallel, Warrior was honoured in the course of the 8th Metal Hammer Golden Gods Awards in London, winning the award for inspiration.

Work on the successor of Eparistera Daimones began after the conclusion of touring, in late 2012. Titled Melana Chasmata (“deep, dark valleys/depressions”), the album was yet again recorded a Triptykon’s rehearsal facilities in Zurich, Switzerland, and Santura’s Woodshed Studio, and produced by Warrior and Santura. Its release in April of 2014 was accompanied by pronounced universal acclaim

and preceded by Breathing, Triptykon’s first 7″ vinyl single. A second, much acclaimed appearance at

Wacken was just one of the many notable concerts that followed the release of Melana Chasmata.

Heavy as a heavy thing weighed down with heaviness, the debut album from Triptykon takes off from where Celtic Frost left off. This is dark, dense and utterly unrelenting in its blackness. This is close to musical genius. – Classic Rock, UK

In a completely unexpected move, H.R. Giger had approached Warrior in October of 2011 to express his appreciation of how Triptykon had used his art on the first album and to propose a continuation of the artistic collaboration. This development thus marked the first time any musical artist has worked with H.R. Giger on three albums (Celtic Frost’s To Mega Therion, and Triptykon’s Eparistera Daimones and Melana Chasmata), and it also served to commemorate a collaboration and friendship that had, by now, lasted for 30 years.

Triptykon’s music and lyrics reveal a group immersed in themes such as history, occultism, human disintegration, religious fanaticism, and nihilism. Songs such as “Abyss Within My Soul”, “A Thousand Lies”, “The Prolonging”, or “Black Snow” bear witness to wastelands of eternal night. The transcending and mergence of seemingly distinct forms of imagination, a hallmark long prominent in Celtic Frost’s efforts, is naturally also abundant within Triptykon’s sphere of inspiration, which ranges across the works of, e.g., Pieter Bruegel, Roland Villeneuve, H.R. Giger, HP Lovecraft, Emily Brontë, Hieronymus Bosch, John Martin, and far beyond.

In 2018, Walter Hoeijmakers, founder of the distinguished Roadburn Festival, contacted Triptykon to suggest a collaboration with the goal of completing Warrior’s Requiem, a three-part musical project originally begun by Celtic Frost in 1987 and continued on that group’s swansong, Monotheist, in 2006.

Roadburn’s considerable resources provided for an ideal partner for such a substantial undertaking.

Triptykon collaborated with the Dutch Metropole Orkest, an ensemble perfectly suited for such an undertaking. The conductor chosen was Jukka Isakkila, from Finland, and the classical arranger was long-time Triptykon affiliate Florian Magnus Maier, from Germany and the Netherlands.

Whereas the original first part of the Requiem as recorded in 1987 was written in an almost entirely untainted environment where metal/classical collaborations were a highly daring novelty, 1986’s Winter and particularly 2019’s Grave Eternal were born into a world where such collaborations had become the de rigueur means to attain artistic credentials for many metal bands. Given such an inflationary proliferation of existing metal songs accompanied by classical instrumentation, it is worth noting that the Celtic Frost/Triptykon Requiem was written specifically for band and orchestra from the very beginning.

After a year dominated by songwriting, arranging, meetings, determining the configuration of the orchestra, rehearsals, and demo recordings, the finished three parts of the Requiem were for the first time performed by band and orchestra in two dress rehearsals at Hilversum, Netherlands, on April 10 and 11, 2019. This, quite literally, set the stage for the actual live performance at Roadburn, on April 12, 2019. Both dress rehearsal and concert were recorded and released as Triptykon’s remarkable third album in 2020, Requiem, Live At Roadburn 2019.

The heaviest band in the world? Probably. Arguably one of the best, too. – Metal Hammer UK

Triptykon’s show is the most impressive concert I have ever witnessed. – Legacy, Germany

There is utter darkness. This is the church of darkness. – Powerofmetal.dk, Denmark 25 years on from Hellhammer, Warrior is still redefining “heavy”. – Terrorizer, UK

Tom Gabriel Warrior was, is, and remains the ruler of all evil. – Rock Hard, Germany

[A] huge imprint left not only by the band’s gigantic first album Eparistera Daimones but also by Celtic Frost’s final masterpiece Monotheist. Harrowing darkness and heaviness made Eparistera Daimones such a landmark release. – Terrorizer, UK