Original proto-death/black metal act Hellhammer created a handful of demos and compilation tracks before vanishing into obscurity, but using what sounds like period equipment and the new Tryptikon lineup, founding member Thomas Gabriel Warriors gives these songs a new life as a live album.
The band issued the following statement:
The impact of Swiss extreme metal forefathers Hellhammer is one that still resonates around the global metal scene today, such was their influence on the early extreme, death, and black metal genres. In the 40 years that have passed since their humble beginnings in Nurensdorf, Switzerland, in May 1982, they have gained a mythically iconic status despite existing for a mere two years. However the band left a highly influential body of work behind, including the three demos Death Fiend, Satanic Rites and Triumph Of Death (al re-released in 2008 as the Demon Entrails demo retrospective), the seminal Apocalyptic Raids EP, and two tracks from the legendary Death Metal compilation. In light of this legacy, it is almost inconceivable that Hellhammer never performed this music on stage.
Celtic Frost, the successor group formed by Hellhammer founding member Tom Gabriel Warrior and former Hellhammer bassist Martin Eric Ain, would sporadically play a Hellhammer song or two, and Warrior’s current band, Triptykon, have played the occasional Hellhammer song live, but the vast body of Hellhammer’s work remained unperformed, until the inception of Triumph Of Death. In 2019 Tom Gabriel Warrior stated : Hellhammer will never return and will never be reformed. It is absolutely impossible to reform a band so closely linked to a very specific and unique period in time. But Hellhammer’s music exists, and it is an extremely important part of my life’s path. And I would like to play it onstage before my demise.
The resurrection of the music of Hellhammer had been an idea Tom Gabriel Warrior and Martin Eric Ain discussed for many years, sparked not least by their renewed collaboration in the reformed Celtic Frost in the 2000s. The first steps towards the realization of Triumph Of Death, named after Hellhammer’s most infamous song and intended to be a very respectful and authentic tribute to Hellhammer, were finally taken in 2014, and the band was officially founded in autumn of 2018. Triumph Of Death consists of individuals who not only love the music in question but truly understand it. The line-up emulates Hellhammer’s final incarnation of April/May 1984, when the group had added an additional guitarist. To date Triumph Of Death have performed numerous notable concerts globally and have brought the seminal music of Hellhammer to fans both old and new. Many of whom thought they may never see it live on stage.
Triumph Of Death’s debut live release Resurrection Of The Flesh is the culmination of three concerts. Recorded in the spring of 2023 at Hell’s Heroes Festival in Houston USA, Dark Easter Metal Meeting in Munich, Germany and SWR Barroselas Metal Fest in Portugal, the album was produced by Tom Gabriel Warrior and Triptykon’s V. Santura. The record captures the band at their primeval finest; raw, foreboding and heavy. The songs may date back four decades but here they are revealed to be still just as vital today as when they were written in the band’s infamous rehearsal bunker in the rural village of Birchwil, Switzerland in the early 1980s. From the thunderous opening chords of Third Of The Storms (Evoked Damnation) to the malevolent, morbid feedback of set closer Triumph Of Death, this album is a sixty minute document of the overwhelming power of the live performance of Triumph Of Death, and it captures the spirit and intensity of these historic songs that have transcended decades to become revered and timeless.
Warrior: This album is, most importantly, testament to the unique connection that exists between the audience and this band. Hellhammer’s music was an underground token in 1982 to 1984, often ridiculed and shunned, and we owe the fact that we are now able to perform it all across the globe entirely to grace, openness, and enthusiasm of those who make exactly these concerts possible. They give us as much as we given them, and my gratitude to them knows no limits.
Personnel
Tom Gabriel Warrior – voice/guitar
André Mathieu – guitar/vocals
Jamie Lee Cussigh – bass
Tim Iso Wey – drums
Tracklist
1. The Third Of The Storms (Evoked Damnation)
2. Massacra
3. Maniac
4. Blood Insanity
5. Decapitator
6. Crucifixion
7. Reaper
8. Horus/Aggressor
9. Revelations Of Doom
10. Messiah
11. Visions Of Mortality
12. Triumph Of Death
Bonus 7” song (Super deluxe edition only)
13. Decapitator (Live In Houston)
Tags: celtic frost, hellhammer, proto-death, thomas gabriel warrior
no thank you GAYbriel
I am 100% gay
The same twenty-four songs. After To Mega Therion their relevance was over.
Into The Pandemonium could have been amazing without those homosexual mating call vocals (thanks Noctir)
On all of the later albums, there is good material, including on Cold Lake, the album that broke the band as a partnership. The albums as a whole do not stand up well however. Maybe Tom G will go back and edit, re-write, and compile the good material from that era into one epic work.
Most try hard bands.
1. Celtic Frost after Hellhammer
2. Sewer after Sissourlet
3. Darkthrone after TH
4. Dark Funeral always
5. Sadly, Incantation after Ledney & Pillard left
1. I find them useful up through To Mega Therion.
2. Sewer was never relevant.
3. I can listen up through Total Death
4. The first EP was pretty good
5. This was an interesting band. The second album was a disappointment, but the EP brought them back, and the third album is excellent too. Nothing is going to touch Onward to Golgotha, which was the product of a collaboration between many musicians of talent. After the third album, this band is basically one long circular album of stuff that belongs on a Master LP.
Am I an imbecile for thinking To Mega Therion is kind of cheesy or is there something to it?
There is something to it. It might also be a little cheesy. Some of the best releases are, and all art involves some sappy stuff, in part because it communicates so well. I mean, look at Pride and Prejudice. In the hands of a lesser artist, many of those themes would be excruciating. We can prove this because if you watch the dumbed-down Kiera Knightley version, you can see exactly what happens when the cheese wins out over the brain.
Brett, this is an intersting perspective. Which work do you value more, Diabolical Conquest or Mortal Throne?
Diabolic Conquest by a mile. Mortal Throne of Nazarene had a lot of good ideas but seemed disorganized and unfinished. The subsequent EP fixed a lot of that.
IMO there is only one real Incantation album, and that is Onward to Golgotha. While Diabolical Conquest is superior to 99.9% of other death metal, it simply doesn’t compare to Golgotha.
DC was a good album. A great album even. But Golgotha, like Infester’s To the Depths… was something more. Something that has almost never been done in death metal, almost like pure black metal (Burzum, Neraines, Mayhem’s DMDS and Pure Holo).
I agree but fuck Neraines.
Listening to Mortal Throne of Nazarene again, it feels like the first software project I worked on at a corporation: some good ideas, compromised by too much input from each committee member, then handled with a combination of throwing everything in and sketching out some of the most important parts, then shipping a partially finished product because time and money ran out. The same emptiness that pervades their current works runs through this one.
I see what you’re doing, Donbass… weaseling Sewer in here, Phantom in the other post. Your metal-spamming isn’t working.
hahaha fucking Sewer
that’s pretty funny
People keep trying to meme this band into existence but they sound like a Kiss and Nickelback crossover.
So which is the worst Sewer song? Besides all of them. Honestly I like the solos on Rektal although the vocals ruin it (absolutely trash, even worse than Dani Filth).
Some songs from them I find ok:
– “Morbid Sewer Emergence” from “Cathartes” (but production sucks I guess “intentionally”/”ironically”)
– “Instinct of Suicide” from “Uruktena” (and maybe the track “Uruktena” itself)
– “Sewerborn in Unlimited Skarnage” from “Les Sewieres de Nostre Deabliere”
– “Temptation, Destruction and Corruption of Man” from “Les Sewieres” (honestly I just like it for the Calvin & Hobbes lyrics/quotes)
Most is trash but I’d rather listen to Sewer (even sober) than Nile/Behemoth/Cryptopsy/nu-Necrophobic wasted :(
The first Behemoth (…From The Pagan Vastlands) is a work of great importance. The stuff they do now is entertainment music for edgy mall kids.
True, but insofar as Polish metal they have nothing on the first Graveland LPs.
Check the liner notes :)
Those are all awesome, but it won’t beat Ronnie James Tyler’s “Total Death and Nightside Eclipse of the Blackhearts.”
I do have respect for women
But sex is awesome
I wanna see Hallie Jackson pee in the following shirts
Emperor
Mayhem
Darkthrone
Dark funeral
Sammath
Immortal
Dissection
Mortis
Excommunion
Enslaved
All war metal
And a hundred Greek Hawaiian gal got rejects pissing too
Hey Brett who is the jlo of black metal? Any hot tittylicious female black metal cops huh?I must know
Who are these people? “Hallie Jackson” has something dark in there, looks Italian, Jewish, Portuguese, or maybe Puerto Rican. She is sort of cute though.
By definition, black metal has no such thing, but obviously the closest match is Euronymous.