Hi, everyone. Fixthony Browstano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of the new Imperial Triumphant album, Goldstar.

Here we have the sixth full-length LP from extreme metal avantgardists, Imperial Triumphant. One of the most difficult to classify trios to come out of the New York experimental scene over the last 10 years, in my opinion. Their catalog collectively takes inspiration from various dissonant and technical of black metal and death metal, with a fair amount of prog rock and jazz fusion, too. With genres like that being at your inspirational core, no wonder this band has a tendency to write records that are long and winding and dense and multi-phased, ever evolving.

But with this new album, the band set some parameters for themselves to keep the tracks as tight as possible and to stay mostly within a five-minute song-length range. Imperial Triumphant is also a band that has a tendency to look toward the past in their art look no further than the consistent Art Deco aesthetics of many of their album covers, even the recent reissue of the excellent Vile Luxury.

Which brings us to Goldstar, which just continues to add to that vibe and the band's overall mystique, with a lot of its content and themes being inspired by vintage cigarette advertisements, too, as I guess the band was fascinated by the contradiction displayed by these very shiny, idyllic ads and also what happens to you health-wise long term if you take up smoking, which specifically is not a topic most death metal albums are infatuated with, but in its own way, this is death-related.

More important than the narrative behind this record, though, is its sound. Like usual with Imperial Triumphant, the aesthetics and instrumentation of this record are dense, they are heavy, they are grim, and sometimes difficult to make heads or tails of. This is all thanks to the band's complex layers of tangled guitars and drums, death growls, and anything else they want to throw in to either elevate or complicate things, be it bells or horns or synths or spoken word passages, an array of effects too.

But still, having heard the band's past records and reviewed them, I can say pretty confidently that what they have delivered this time around is, in its own way, a bit more palatable and easy to digest and interpret.

Along with the songs being generally shorter this time around, it would seem the band also took a more direct approach with their writing, too. Many tracks on this album feature repeated lyrics and refrains. A lot of these noisy, tension-building riff passages lead to pretty gratifying payoff and resolutions. A few very climactic finishes on a few of these tracks, too. The overall run time of the album is just 38 minutes, which, again, is shorter than usual for the band.

Most of the tracks on on this record feel like a complete frenzy of thrilling and out of control, but very precise, extreme metal mayhem, with lots of memorable moments packed throughout. We have the opening track on the record, "Eye of Mars", in which we are just absolutely pummeled out of the gate with very grim and thunderous riffs and drums. As I said before, the layers are dense, but in this case, surprisingly easy to pull apart because we have a lot of very awesome and well-mixed orchestra horn hits. The drums are really punchy and crisp as well. You really hear everything from the kicks to all of the very intricate cymbal work in a lot of the fills, too. The bass has really deep, snarly tone to it that consistently pops in track after track.

And of course, with all of that, you have guitars, guitars, and guitars, with searing leads and shrill dissonant chords; ringing, burning riffs. And after listening to this record numerous times over, I honestly think we are talking about the best production job on any Imperial triumphant album so far, as the results are detailed and horrifying and abrasive, but simultaneously stunningly beautiful in moments as well.

Because as nasty and as unforgiving as some of the drum parts and riff passages are, there's also a refinement to how they were written and executed. Not to mention, again, the horns on the track that just make the whole thing sound so epic and grandiose. The sound of the track also changes entirely in the final leg when the band suddenly busts into this one chord that suddenly spreads the entire thing out into this really panoramic reverb-soaked sound that just ripples out into oblivion. And then from there, we go from just, again, this claustrophobic presentation to a much spacier one, and the band just builds within that space from there, really building things up into a finish that sounds like the entire universe imploding on itself. And yes, overall, very strong start to the record.

Then from here, the record continues on a really impressive run with the following track, "Gommorah Nouveau", where frame one we have unforgiving dark abrasive death metal with riffs punctuated by these twisted ascending leads, more dissonant guitar chords. And again, we have a portion of this track that suddenly breaks into this very spacey bridge with some glossy synthesizers to boot seeping into the mix. Then the band returns to a nastier, drier sound with the bass sounding even more disgusting somehow.

Now, if it wasn't already obvious, the lyrics of the track tie into the biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah. But we're talking about a new, contemporary Gomorrah here in this case, one where the band describes high class low lives who are seemingly using their wealth and power to indulge in access, maybe some form of prostitution, exploitation.

And a lot of these themes of accruing and hoarding wealth continue under the song "Lexington Delirium", too, where the band also, and this is something else that I didn't really mention earlier in the review, pulls inspiration from their surroundings in New York City. Now, this song also features Tomas Haake of Meshuggah fame, which isn't too surprising of a crossover, considering the world of metal that inspires Imperial Triumphant. And on this track, I think the band writes one of the catchiest songs on the album. It's packed with all these call and response vocals. And they get quite forward about what exactly they're going on about in the concept of the album: "I doubt you could even imagine it / A palace of mere progress / All for one and none for all."

They also speak of "grand Manhattanism" and skyscrapers weeping. Again, it would seem the band is pulling very clearly from New York City as this place of opulence and extreme wealth inequality, as these large skyscrapers and golden buildings all serve as symbols of excess and wealth and power and influence. Like with every moment up to this point, much of this track is just pure mayhem in terms of technical and progressive drumwork and guitars. But after a chilling little spoken word break, the band launches into one of the most anthemic melodies on this entire record toward the very end. I just love how much the band is embracing melody on this record. I really do think it makes a lot of these tracks sound a lot more gratifying and go down much easier during these more intense payoff moments.

This track transitions pretty tightly into the following "Hotel Sphinx", which has its own killer melody right at the start. On this track, instrumentally, we have this progressive rock and black metal blend. The lyrics paint a character portrait of a political celebrity who has a gullible audience and is also loved by so many. Once again, the power, the money, the influence, all seemingly are painted as these sources of profound evil, or at least are tools of those who want to do profound evil. There's also a freaky breakdown with a spoken word bit of, "Hail Satan, my child, don't worry, he will fix it." This also ushers in a series of synth chords that have a huge classical twist to them. (In fact, I was reading some comparisons saying that it most likely is a nod to Hendel.) Then the band busts into this speedy black metal variation of this chord progression with new lead guitar licks and just furious blast beats.

Following this, we have a really awesome and thrilling noise core song that lasts 47 seconds, featuring Yoshiko Ohara of Bloody Panda, which is just pure insanity.

The band continues to add to the theme and concept of the album with the "Goldstar" interlude which essentially reads like a very old world vintage cigarette ad that you might hear on old time radio, something like that.

Then on "Rot Moderne", the band further makes it clear what exactly they are getting at in terms of just the riches and wealth and excess of the few in modern society just hollowing out the world that we live in, with the opening lyrics being, "Who am I to care? Greed is good / None such as too much." The lyrics throughout the rest of the song just further bolster that idea. Meanwhile, we have some of the most angular and straightforward riffs on the entire record, but I wouldn't say this song undergoes the same epic and interesting progressions that a lot of the other tracks on the record do. I think instrumentally and lyrically, it's maybe the most on the nose song on the entire album, and it's slightly weaker for it.

But I do think the record bounces back with the track "Pleasuredome", which does have a very odd structure to it. However, I do love the multiple changes across the song, most especially the rhythmic drum circle type breakdown in the second half.

Meanwhile, "Industry of Misery" is just an incredibly powerful finish for this album, in my opinion, and one that not only features some of the best performances and extreme metal blends and riffs of the entire album, but the entire outro of the track – and mind you, this is the one song that actually does go the distance in terms of length on the album. Yeah, the entire finish of the track is just too close in similarity to not be a direct nod to the Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", specifically the growling, heavy, slow riffs that end that song out and just continue into oblivion until the song just stops. But of course, with it being Imperial Triumphant and them having the influences that they do, they got to do a little bit of a prog metal twist on it and change up the groove and the time signature a bit.

And they really do tie up things lyrically and thematically on the track as well with this call toward the very end of "Deliver us unto endless slavery," which, again, making the ideology and class politics of this record painfully clear.

But yeah, again, production-wise, writing-wise, concept, theme, overall focus – I got to say, I do think Imperial Triumphant have crafted their best album so far, and I wasn't even expecting it to be as good as it is, but it's just great.

Honestly, floored.

Here I was like a dummy thinking Vile Luxury was probably going to go down as their best, but no, in fact, it is Goldstar. It's just amazing that the band was able to really streamline their writing, their sound on this record, add some bolder instrumentation, and still somehow come through with a result that is, by usual extreme metal and progressive rock standards, so tight, so virtuous, so impressive, and yet also sounds very organic as well in terms of its recording and presentation, too.

But yeah, absolutely impressed with this record. I think it's going to go down as one of my favorites of the year, which is why I am feeling a light to decent 9 on it.

Anthony Fantano, Imperial Triumphant, Forever.