I’ve spent decades watching bands try to capture New York City’s essence. Most fall back on grimy CBGB nostalgia or hip-hop’s concrete narratives. And then there’s Imperial Triumphant, those golden-masked weirdos who’ve somehow translated Manhattan’s architectural monstrosities and economic disparities into sound. Their previous albums felt like being dragged through Times Square during a bad acid trip – technically impressive but exhausting. So colour me surprised that Goldstar feels like the trio is finally inviting listeners in rather than testing our endurance.
Let’s be clear though – this isn’t Imperial Triumphant’s “commercial album.” It’s more like they’ve distilled their chaos into shots instead of forcing us to chug the whole bottle. First track, “Eye of Mars” still opens with those trademark brass fanfares before descending into bendy, dissonant riffage, but there’s something… different. Did they just throw in a hook? Did I just catch myself nodding along to music that previously would’ve given me a migraine?
Zachary Ezrin (the guitar wizard/vocalist behind those cavernous growls) mentioned in press materials that years of opening for bigger bands with 30-minute slots made them realize nobody wants to hear just three nine-minute songs. By keeping most tracks around five minutes and actually bothering with song structures, they’ve created their most potent work yet.
What remains gloriously untouched is the musicianship. Kenny Grohowski might be the most criminally overlooked drummer in metal – the way he slips between blast beats and jazzy cymbal work feels almost supernatural. And Steve Blanco treats his bass like a lead guitar, slapping and sliding with wah-pedal enhancements that sometimes threaten to steal the whole damn show.
On “Pleasuredome,” they’ve somehow corralled both Meshuggah’s Tomas Haake and Slayer’s Dave Lombardo into the same track. But instead of turning it into a drummer’s wet dream (which would’ve been the obvious move), they’ve incorporated Brazilian Maracatu rhythms while Blanco’s bass wanders off on its own philosophical journey. It sounds like stumbling into some smoke-filled basement jazz club at 3 AM where the musicians have been dropping acid since lunchtime.
“Lexington Delirium” (featuring more Haake contributions) reveals another side of the band – their architectural obsession. It’s apparently their love letter to the Chrysler Building, with sounds that build and stack like Art Deco steel. Those subtle city sounds – car horns, distant sirens – lurk beneath several tracks, reminding us that for all their avant-garde posturing, Imperial Triumphant remains fundamentally a New York band.
The whole thing was recorded in just five days at Colin Marston’s now-closed Menegroth Studios in Queens. Marston (known for his work with Gorguts and Krallice) has captured every weird nuance, from Ezrin’s dissonant guitar work to the moment in “Industry of Misery” where all the instruments drop out for Ezrin to growl “Bring down the guillotine!” – easily the most chilling moment on the record.
Not everything lands perfectly. “NEWYORKCITY” is 47 seconds of improvised grindcore that feels more like a statement than a song. And occasionally the experimentation feels a bit calculated rather than organic – as if they’ve ticked off their “weird quota” for a particular track. But these are quibbles about an album that otherwise balances extremity and accessibility better than I ever expected from these masked madmen.
What’s interesting about Goldstar is how it positions Imperial Triumphant within the modern metal scene. They’re part of a small but growing cadre of bands pushing metal into genuinely unfamiliar territory. Unlike the more orchestral approach of modern symphonic metal or the technical wankery of prog, Imperial Triumphant draw from jazz theory, world music textures, and the actual sounds of urban decay to create something that doesn’t just extend metal’s boundaries – it questions why those boundaries existed in the first place.
The album’s packaging (designed by Zbigniew Bielak) resembles an old-timey cigarette package, continuing the band’s obsession with early 20th-century aesthetics. It’s a fitting visual companion to music that somehow captures both the gleaming promise of American capitalism and the rot beneath. As we drift through our own uncertain “roaring twenties,” with billionaires buying elections while homeless encampments grow beneath their towers, Imperial Triumphant feel less like a metal band and more like cultural documentarians.
For newcomers to the band, Goldstar is your best entry point – though “accessible” remains a relative term when discussing music this fundamentally challenging. For longtime fans who feared they might water down their vision to reach a broader audience, rest easy. They’ve just figured out how to make their particular brand of madness more immediate without sacrificing an ounce of their weird, dissonant soul. And in doing so, they’ve created the perfect soundtrack for a society that’s gilded on the surface but corroding underneath.
Imperial Triumphant play Beanfield Theatre on March 25 with Mayhem, Mortiis and New Skeletal Faces.
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