When I see a name like The Monolith Deathcult, the first thing I think of is occult, mystic death metal in the vein of The Chasm, Serpens Aeons, or Necros Christos. Why? Because a title like that screams of the whole "cult of death metal" aesthetic that those bands embody. Coming into Trivmvirate, I was expecting very old school-tinged, well executed death metal very much in that vein.

Dear God, The Monolith Deathcult is nothing of the sort. The band instead plays an extremely epic, atmospheric style of mid-paced death metal with heavily reliance on symphonic synths and electronica. Yes, electronica. Don’t expect Ahumado Granujo style gabber-meshing though; that’s not what I mean. The electronica to be found on Trivmvirate is extremely hit or miss.

At its foundation, The Monolith Deathcult combine a death metal version of Theogonia-era Rotting Christ with the snaking riffs, epic structure, and barbaric, war-like atmosphere and drumming of Nile (though with less emphasis on technicality). Then they factor in electronica that recalls the stranger moments of Gloria-era Disillusion. Just seeing the words "Gloria-era Disillusion" is probably more than enough to cause most people to start running in the other direction; that Disillusion album is probably one of the most misunderstood and hated pieces of progressive metal of the last 5 years. Not to fear, The Monolith Deathcult doesn’t go as far as Disillusion did… usually.

And that’s the rub of Trivmvirate: it only sort of works. Sometimes the music of Trivmvirate pummels through, like a god damn Roman phalanx roaring through a barbarian village for a campaign of rape, pillaging, and plundering. The drumming is tribal and martial in feel, the vocals can sound especially sick (just hearing the vocalist say "sarcophagus" is a treat), and the riffs never wander into aimless-wankery or repetitive blandness territory. The problem is for every song that does it especially right (e.g. "Wrath of the Baath", "Demigod"), there are songs whose synth and electronica work just undermine the entire effort, sounding like a Rammstein clone trying to do death metal or much, much worse. The third song "Kindertodeslied" is particularly regrettable with its female chorus and poorly chosen electronic beats.

All in all, Trivmvirate is not a bad album. But the atmospheric sound that The Monolith Deathcult is going for needs a lot more refining. They have to work particularly at getting the electronica elements more in line with the epic synth work and the combative feel of the death metal. If you’re really "open" in your death metal tastes, then dive on in. I’ll stay out of this pool for now, however.

Review byNecro-tron