Imperial Triumphant – Goldstar (Review)

This is the sixth album from US avant-garde black/death metal band Imperial Triumphant.

Imperial Triumphant always make a fascinating record. Check out any of their albums, (such as 2020’s Alphaville or 2022’s Spirit of Ecstasy and you’ll be in an unfamiliar world of avant-garde experimentation and gilded individuality.

As I’ve noted previously, Imperial Triumphant are not your average band, and the normal genre tags don’t entirely fit. It’s not inaccurate to say that Goldstar is a mix of jazz, black metal, death metal, and experimental sounds and textures, but that doesn’t tell the whole story either. This is a band best described by their own music. Yet, of course, I’ll try to give it a go anyway.

Change is constant in Imperial Triumphant’s discography, and in the case of Goldstar this means that the new material is shorter and more immediate than much of their work. In fact, with a duration of 38 minutes, this is shorter than all of their albums bar one.

If Spirit of Ecstasy was Imperial Triumphant at their peak of delirium and arcane obscurity, then Goldstar can be viewed as a reaction to that; Imperial Triumphant have taken a few steps back from the unreachable heights that Spirit of Ecstasy inhabited, readying themselves for Goldstar‘s more readily approachable form of expressive and evocative skylines instead.

The songwriting is intricate and involved, yet despite its complexity and esoteric grandeur, is less impenetrable than it typically is. This makes for an album of creative extremity that’s not exactly accessible, but is certainly more readily engaging. The Imperial Triumphant of Goldstar is a band that have succeeded in channelling their inspired chaos and mayhem into songs that are some of their most focused and easily digested overall.

It’s all relative of course. Goldstar may be more direct than its predecessors, but it’s still Imperial Triumphant. This means that the songs are labyrinthine and obtuse. There are a lot of layers, influences, and ideas spread out across the songs, and every track has a character of its own. There is even an eccentric grindcore song.

Every song has a voice of its own. Some are loud and well-enunciated, some are slurred and incomprehensible. All are striking and distinctive, offering the listener a different facet of the band’s formidable personality. Goldstar is another opulent gem in Imperial Triumphant’s impressive discography, and I urge you to give yourself over to its lavish charms.

Essential listening for fans of bands such as Ingurgitating Oblivion, Oranssi Pazuzu, Plebeian Grandstand, Pyrrhon, etc.