TOM GABRIEL FISCHER: 'What A Sorry, Damp Joke CELTIC FROST Had Become'

Former CELTIC FROST and current TRIPTYKON frontman Tom Gabriel Fischer has issued the following update:

"Even though the events in question are already many months in the past, I continue to be asked almost daily why CELTIC FROST broke apart. It's a question to which I know the answer but which is extremely difficult to explain. It is a question, not least, which I pose to myself all the time as well, regardless. As I probably will for as long as I live.

"What a sorry, damp joke CELTIC FROST had become behind the scenes during the last few months of the band's existence. It was impossible to continue, surrounded by one whose perpetual preposterous boasts and insolent tirades bore an ever decreasing relation to reality and one who could no longer be bothered and ultimately belied the commitment he had frequently confirmed to me since we began working together again. But then, I had predicted exactly that to his face on more than one occasion.

"There was no remnant anymore of what once was an extremely professional and determined group. Music was no longer even a topic. In the end, determination was met with hatred, literally, on one hand and apathy on the other. I became the only one who truly intended to continue on the course as we set it. Absurdly, I could only do so by leaving.

"What a disgrace. What a disappointment, when we should have — and could have — done it better. What a betrayal of the work we ourselves had put into the band for so many years and the commitment our audiences had granted us so unconditionally. We all shall never again experience anything like it."

TRIPTYKON's lineup also features Reed St. Mark (ex-CELTIC FROST),V. Santura (DARK FORTRESS) and Vanja Slay. The first audio sample, a track called "Crucifixus", can be heard on TRIPTYKON's official MySpace page.

Commented Fischer: "TRIPTYKON will sound as close to CELTIC FROST as is humanly possible, and the album I am working on will feature all the material I envisioned for the successor to [CELTIC FROST's] 'Monotheist'. I desire the album to be a darker, heavier, and slightly more experimental development of 'Monotheist'.

"'Crucifixus' is but one of many compositions to that end. TRIPTYKON is not defined by just this one song, however, just like CELTIC FROST was not defined by 'Totengott' alone."

Fischer announced his departure from CELTIC FROST in April, citing "the irresolvable, severe erosion of the personal basis so urgently required to collaborate within a band so unique, volatile, and ambitious."

It was reported earlier in the year that CELTIC FROST was putting together an album tentatively titled "Monotheist Companion" that will feature unreleased songs from 2006's "Monotheist" sessions and rearrangements of tracks from the album.