TRIUMPH OF DEATH: Resurrection Of The Flesh (BLACK METAL): review / opinion to read on Music Waves

In the beginning of Evil, there was the unholy trio that were Venom, Bathory and Hellhammer. The last of the three had only a fleeting existence, scuttled after two years by Tom G. Warrior and Martin Ain, who launched Celtic Frost in the process, but its influence is considerable and there are countless bands who claim its legacy. The fact that he only recorded a handful of albums between 1982 and 1984 (three demos, the 'Apocalyptic Raids' EP and a split with Helloween, Running Wild and Dark Avenger) and the conditions under which they were recorded - rudimentary in many respects, at a time when black metal was not yet being talked about - have largely contributed to the cult aura surrounding Hellhammer, the key figure in an entire musical movement.

Forty years on, Tom G. Warrior is still haunted by this name from the past to which he owes everything, as he readily admits. Without Hellhammer, there would have been no Celtic Frost or Tryptikon, and not even Thomas Gabriel Fisher would have become Tom G. Warrior. To pay tribute to these early days, and to respond to the frustration of never having been able to perform these founding psalms of black art on stage, in 2018 Fisher founded the band Triumph Of Death (named after Hellhammer's second demo) and set off to play festivals for several years. From these ceremonies comes this live album called 'Resurrection Of The Flesh', captured in the spring of 2023.

Of course, it's not exactly Hellhammer. Of the historic members, only the singer and guitarist take part in the celebrations, and he himself is no longer the kid (he was barely twenty) he was then. But the soul of pre-Celtic Frost is palpably there, gushing forth from the ritual, and the band is a precious witness to it on stage. Listening to it, you can also see the extent to which Triptykon has left its mark, its stigma, on the way the master of the house now expresses his (black) art. The interpretation of these relics takes on a mortiferous, abysmal or even downright doom dimension, as witness 'Temple Of Death', more than twelve numbing minutes long, trapped in a tenebrous gangue. Though still brimming with cryptic sap, Hellhammer's tracks have lost in apocalyptic violence what they've gained in unhealthy atmosphere and telluric power, as Tom G. Warrior's vocals seem to resonate from the depths of Moria.

While their morbid legacy has enabled them to triumph over death, Hellhammer are resurrected by Temple Of Death, whose "Resurrection Of The Flesh" revives the soul and spirit by plunging their prehistoric black thrash into the abysses of an even more cavernous doom. It's a way for the demiurge to definitively turn the page on his past, written in the black ink of a genre still in the making. - Official website

TRIUMPH OF DEATH

RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH

BMG

BLACK METAL