I gotta say I had never heard of Tristwood. These Austrian Industrial Black metalheads have flown under my radar since their inception at the start of the Millennium.
There has been a bit of to and fro for them but their line up has stayed pretty consistent allowing them to self-release Blackcrowned Majesty amidst the craziness of Covid-19.
Tristwood’s sound emphasises the Black Metal more than the Industrial and Death Metal elements. The production is very lo-fi and underground sounding – in fact Axumis sounds like his vocals have been recorded in a bunker on a dictaphone. So far so KVLT.
The rasping vocals move between satanic screams and staccato death metal shouts.
Pan pipes find their way into the mix somehow as do various electronic samples that remind me of the freebies that Pitchshifter offered at the end of PSI way back in the day. Their blend of genres is a hodge-podge and sounds pretty dated with some of the industrial riffs reminiscent of scenes from late 90’s horror/sci fi films with scenes in Alt/Cyber clubs.
That being said there is a bizarre charm to this album. It sounds like the sort of thing that you would find on a tape in the back of your wardrobe during lockdown and find out it is the 2001 demo by your cousin who was really into DHG at the time after making the leap from Nu-Metal.
There is some great fun to be had within “Blackcrowned Majesty”. The title track kicks off like Front 242 before a blastbeat kicks in which is completely out of keeping with the synth orchestral backing. Add in gruff gutturals that sound like they are being rasped into an industrial sized baked bean can and add some bleeps and electronic noises like R2D2 having sex and there is quite the lo-fi party going on.
“The Hall of Rauthras Fate” is actually a pretty good raw Black Metal track. It makes me think of what Fadades would sound like if he played it a bit straighter and added in real instruments.
“Bone Cathedral” is pretty hectic – it almost sounds grindy at one point with just the Heinz vocals breaking the illusion.
The final track “Nightshade Eternal” features a new style of vocals. Imagine someone being sick into one of those voice changing megaphones that people give for secret Santa.
It stuns me that the vocals have been allowed to go out on this album in the form that they are. There appears to be no attempt to mix them alongside the music and samples .
The album isn’t bad, just take it back into the studio – re record the vocals and there is a fairly listenable if confused album here .
(4/10 Matt Mason)
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