The five most unorthodox guitarists in metal, as chosen by Imperial Triumphant
If you want to understand Imperial Triumphant, you need to understand New York. To the uninitiated, the band are just weirdness for the sake of weirdness: start-stop, polyrhythmic nightmares played by three men in golden masks who pop champagne during live shows. But it’s all relevant to the Big Apple. Their Art Deco imagery and hard, tumbling riffs are metaphors for the decay it’s suffered since the jazz heyday of the 1920s.
“We’re the sound of New York,” states singer/guitarist Zachary Ezrin. “And New York sounds like decadence rotting.”
Ezrin was born in the city and has spent his entire life surrounded by its contradictions: the vast opulence of the Empire State Building above his head, the scummy claustrophobia of the subway under his feet. “I never left my hometown, essentially,” he admits.
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He formed Imperial Triumphant – rounded out by bassist Steve Blanco and drummer Kenny Grohowski – in 2005 and has now made eight albums about his hometown’s fading shimmer. The latest, Goldstar, sees the band intentionally trim their song lengths without skimping on their intensity and commentary.
“It’s more forgiving,” Ezrin says of Imperial Triumphant’s latest music. “We haven’t changed what we do: these songs are still Imperial songs with Imperial riffs. What we did was challenge ourselves by putting five-minute boundaries on each song and writing something a bit more rock’n’roll, as opposed to, like, sonata-allegro form.”
The music video for single Lexington Delirium let the band connect with New York more closely than ever before. They filmed it in the iconic Chrysler Building, becoming the first metal act to record anything there. The last production allowed inside the Golden Age skyscraper was Metropolis by legendary director Francis Ford Coppola.
Zachary Ezrin of Imperial Triumphant. Image: Press
Ezrin is tight-lipped about how Imperial Triumphant got the opportunity, hinting at a friend who works in the building, but declares that it was a long-held dream come true. “Probably five years ago, I was thinking, ‘I’d love that.’ On [2022 album] Spirit of Ecstasy, we were able to shoot our promo photos inside the lobby, which was insane. Then, next cycle, we ended up doing a whole music video!”
In the clip, the frontman plays an instrument that he calls ‘Babylon Luxe II’, which perfectly suits his band’s glamour-gone-to-hell theme. It’s a 1989 Gibson Flying V, one of extreme metal’s mainstay guitar shapes, that’s been caked in gold: 24 gold frets, a gold Floyd Rose bridge, gold machine heads, even a gold pickguard that covers nearly the whole front of the instrument.
“It’s what people see when I go onstage,” Ezrin says when asked about the striking synergy on its appearance. “An important part of the stage production is having a cool-looking guitar. Look at Kiss: they always had cool guitars. It’s such a creative form of expression.”
The model becomes even more impressive when he reveals that he built it himself. “When I signed with Gibson as an artist, I didn’t realise that they don’t make many Floyd Rose guitars,” he continues, “except for the Gibson Axcess, which I have two of. It’s secretly my favourite guitar, but there are some drawbacks. There are only 22 frets and it’s not as flashy or extreme as the Flying V.”
The ’89 Flying V was made with shredders in mind. While Ezrin’s playing style isn’t conventional shredding in the vein of Yngwie Malmsteen or Steve Vai, it’s still a highly technical assault, inventively mixing metal riffing, jazz chops and pure, discordant noise. As a result, the model proves perfect. “It’s got a razor-thin neck, it’s got 24 frets,” he says. “It’s meant for metal.”
Given Ezrin’s creative, hybridised approach, he goes on to discuss five of the guitarists that he considers the most unorthodox in metal. They run from Quorthon in black metal standard-bearers Bathory to underground innovators such as Portal…
Image: Alex Krauss
Colin Marston (Behold the Arctopus, Gorguts, etc.)
“Let’s start with my older brother. He’s not actually my brother – he’s the guitar player for Krallice and Behold the Arctopus and he plays bass in Gorguts – but he’s been the engineer of all our music. He’s a big talent, definitely unorthodox. He plays avant-garde black metal and a lot of his guitars are in weird tunings. His riffing and his concepts are very unorthodox, very obscure, and he definitely approaches metal from a unique perspective.”
He’s obviously not a guy who only listens to Mayhem and Cannibal Corpse. Do you know any out-of-the-box influences he has?
“Colin Marston has heard every band in the world. [laughs] He’s insane. He knows every single song ever written and he’s heard it.”
Horror Illogium (Portal)
“This band is definitely an inspiration to me, because this band… clearly, they can play. They know what they’re doing but, because of the nature of their art, it needs to be murky and sloppy and discordant. I think that’s something that’s never really been done in metal: something that’s intentionally messy for the sake of sounding as Lovecraftian as possible. There are a lot of bands who sing about H.P. Lovecraft and his work, but it’s usually through tight riffing and death metal. It’s never been done where the music sounds like a H.P. Lovecraft story, where it’s hard to understand what the actual monster is and where the horror is coming from. It’s hard to comprehend.”
All that messiness and discordance, you can see the throughline from that to what Imperial Triumphant do.
“I saw Portal once and I was caught in a vortex of chaos, then all of a sudden they all stop on a dime and continue. I was like, ‘OK, so they all know exactly where they are.’ I always thought that was really cool and Imperial does that a lot. We have a lot of starts and stops and I think that helps the listener realise, ‘OK, this is all intentional.’”
Luc LeMay (Gorguts)
“I think there’s something in the water in Gorguts. [laughs] This fucking guy is just a well of creativity, and I really admire the trail he’s blazed with his band. Because Colin plays in Gorguts, they have a tablature book at the studio that I’ve glanced through, and I looked at how they wrote out [1998 song] Obscura. I was like, ‘This is not a riff! It’s insane how you would even consider making this up!’ I love what it sounds like, but I would never have figured it out. It’s so creative and I love that.”
It’s been nine years since the last Gorguts release [2016 EP Pleiades’ Dust]. Do you know if they’re working on anything at the minute?
“I forgot to ask Colin last time I spoke to him but I think they might be. Colin has been writing for that band, which is just a fantastic notion. I think they might be working on something.”
Quorthon (Bathory)
“I really like Quorthon from Bathory, particularly the earlier stuff. I feel like that stuff is really what I’m trying to talk about with that fast and loose kind of playing, but it has a quality where you’re just like, ‘Fuck yeah!’ His solos are always the same sort of, like, pentatonic shred runs and they’re awesome because they’re sloppy and chaotic and crazy. I just like that: that there’s no fucks given. I think, sometimes with metal music, it’s not about the notes that you’re playing but the sound that comes out. With early Bathory, that’s the case.”
Bathory’s guitar tone basically built an entire genre. So much of black metal was inspired by those first albums.
“It’s the atmosphere, man! It’s just basic speed metal, there’s nothing super crazy about it, except it’s got that atmosphere of darkness and chaos, which I think is really what makes black metal so special.”
Nekromancer and Stormbringer (Darklord)
“Darklord are a completely unknown death metal band from Australia. They have one record out, Symphony Satanikka from 2002, and it is literally the coolest shit ever! It’s the funniest thing ever. Each member of the band plays double-neck guitars: one for the death metal parts and one for the solos. The solo neck is obviously maple and shreddier [laughs] and the other one is down-tuned. What they do is they play heavy keyboard synths and super low, groggy death metal, and it’s fucking brutal but with beautiful, Emperor-style keyboards glazed on top! Then, out of nowhere, the guy will take a solo and it’s the most perfect, Yngwie-Malmsteen-on-meth fucking solo! It’s so fast and so clean and you’re like, ‘Wait… what?!’”
That sounds wild!
“It’s insane! There’s a video of the guy on YouTube just shredding for 10 minutes. I was watching it with Colin and we slowed the video down. Even at half-speed, he misses no notes. That’s the sound of loneliness right there. [laughs]”
Goldstar is out now via Century Media. Imperial Triumphant tour Europe with Igorrr and Master Boot Record in October.
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