Requiem (Live At Roadburn 2019)

Switzerlands blackened doom mystics, in collaboration with the Metropole Orkest, performed a specially commissioned concert of Celtic Frosts Requiem at 2019s Roadburn Festival. Celtic Frost, like Triptykon, was founded and led by guitarist and frontman Tom G. Warrior (Thomas Gabriel Fischer). His former band recorded the first and third movements as bookends of their recorded history. Given the noisy, dissonant brutality of Triptykons previous albums, Requiem remains less than welcoming. That said, it is almost obsessively compelling. Its experimental quality is in keeping not only with Warriors ambitions for Triptykon, but realizes his vision with CF. With conductor Jukka Iisakkila, Triptykon and Metropole Orkest were joined by Tunisian vocalist Safa Heraghi. The opening movement is Rex Irae. Its original incarnation appeared on CFs Into the Pandemonium in 1987. This version improves upon the half-baked (and admittedly economically recorded) original immeasurably. Rex Irae is a proper composition, with a beginning (a thunderous guitar, brass, and drums intro); a song in the middle delivered by Heraghi (a more earthy and present alto, contrasting with the classical soprano on the original), and an end where Heraghi is joined by Warrior amid tympani, droning trombones, and a sweeping, modal melody. It leads directly into the new 32-minute second act Grave Eternal (comprising six tracks), which Warrior has worked on for more than three decades. It was completed specifically for this performance. Drummer Hannes Grossmann crashes into the orchestra, propelling Heraghis ranging alto toward the cosmos, as Warrior adds vulnerable bluesy leads. From its second section on, dissonant strings, chimes, rolling tom-toms, rumbling bass, and sweeping brass showcase Warriors expansive use of the orchestras sonorities. This doesn’t remotely sound like a metal band with a symphony: check the flamenco-inspired solo trumpet fills inspired by Miles Davis Sketches of Spain. The interplay between vocalists and orchestra is gothic, doomy, avant-garde, heavy music that goes far beyond the confines of extreme metal toward an unsettling place that evolves into funereal metal only in its final two sections. Closer Winter, from CFs 2006 Monotheist reunion offering, is drenched in mournful cello drones, synth, and soaring vocals from Heraghi. Ultimately, Requiem is the sound of darkness itself; its a foreboding symphony that doesnt ever let go. With its complex emotional expression provoked by a minimal tonal palette, and adorned in expansive textural and dynamic ranges, Requiem requires repeated listening; only then will it reveal itself as a transcendent, epic, even majestic composition proving that extremities of human emotion, musical tension, and radical experimentation can be combined seductively and memorably. It is thus far the bands masterpiece. ~ Thom Jurek