14/06/2025

Imperial Triumphant + Cold Ceiling, No Exit & Windswept -Mothership: June 13, 2025

Imperial Triumphant. Formed in New York (where they like Jazz) by Zachary Ezrin in 2005, avant garde, experimental, even transcendental in nature, Imperial Triumphant have in their rua decades of existence, edged the Black Metal genre out of the dark ages, into an intellectual realm that the vapid have revilled against, while the valorous have embraced passionately.

The trinitarian members perform in regalia referencing futurism and art deco, including masks representing Apollo, Hecate, Baal and pango (black) capes, the current line up is Zachary Ezrin (Apollo mask, vocals, guitars since 2005), Kenny Grohowski (Hecate mask, drums, since 2012) & Steve Blanco (Baal mask, bass, vocals, keyboards, since 2014) Their latest album Goldstar (2025), features guest drummers Dave Lombardo (Slayer) and Tomas Nils Haake (Meshuggah), which received positive reviews, is perhaps their most congenial to date, within/without the parameters of Black Metal, as they continue to be the vanguard.

A realization, tonight’s only Aotearoa appearance for Imperial Triumphant is on Friday the 13th, a foreboding omen, or a point of mirth? It will only add to the po’s noteworthiness I suggest. Toru support acts, it is a Rahine, so most of us don’t have mahi the next ata, still a marathon of sorts. Rua Tamaki Makaurau acts; Cold Ceiling & Exit Sign, with Pōneke’s Windswept flanked in between. Te Manu Atatū (The early bird gets the worm)

Exit Sign

Are a post-covid band, the new generation? Since 2023, Exit Sign, a toru-piece force bringing a guitar-heavy, sludge-infused psychedelia to Tamaki Makaurau. With noticeable influences of early Melvins alternating with swagger of Monster Magnet, and measured with elements of hardcore punk, their sound is hypnotically heavy, grooved, featured harmonic leads, and bassfulls of energy.

Guitarist Ruairi Brunt even with his war wound (broken string) riffed with admirable precision, layering lead harmonies that elevate many songs, Jay Alexander held down the dual bass and vocal duties with precise presence (mostly), while Kevin Khaleel‘s drumming anchored the waves of noise with rhythmic precision. I’m sure they played their rua singles: 2024’s Kaiju and 2025’s Subsistence, and shared songs from their on the horizon debut album.As their last song (name escaped) me, a full-blown closer, defined Exit Sign as a band currently carving their own path.

Windswept

Windswept are a Pōneke-based black metal band (part of a scene, other notables are Bodysiege, Jörmungandr, and Pervertor), their name is a clever reference to the winds that blight the City, and to the storm-in-effect they are reputed to create onstage. A five piece, female fronted, with a debut (demo) single Cenote – released this year, I suspect this might have been their first visit to Tamaki Makaurau.

There are theatrics astride the stage, the four guys stand with their backs as theme music plays, then their singer joins them onstage, draped in the garb of Black-Metal, war-axe in one hand and (possibly fake blood) in other, soon to be poured down her face. Windswept live up immediately to their reputation, as growl-scream vocals shaft over a wall of rhythms and noise. In the audience, the purists are enamoured, and it’s impossible to get to front of stage.

In a punchy 28 minute set, an unrelenting barrage of classic black metal fills The Mothership, the band are tight, well versed, acting unison. But it is the efforts of their singer, frontperson, the ringmaster, that create something sui generis amongst the opening acts tonight. It’s not only her archetypal vocal delivery of black-metal murmuring, she has, or perhaps is well versed in the comportment of a singer, meister in such a band. With prop and garb, she used her physicality to add visual elements to Windswept’s performance tonight. A galvanized performance tonight certainly put Windswept on the map tonight in Tamaki Makaurau.

Cold Ceiling

Originally Pōneke shaped, this three-piece outfit released a truly magnificent album this year – I Must Be Closer, and not performed enough times since i first saw them at Junk Festival in 2024. The three, Riley Noonan (Drums) Christopher Jackson (Bass) and Mathew Pogson (Guitar Vocals) are playing their last show for a while, as Pogson heads overseas, though in conversation with Jackson, i’m assured a sophomore album and sporadic shows are likely in the future.

Cold Ceiling starts with finesse, it’s an ambient beginning, their post-punk roots are front and centre, but just momentarily. A post-metal darkness pervades and Cold Ceiling brings their effervescent complexity of screamo vocals, maths-metal, driving bass undertow, and systematic, avant garde drums to the room. In a set that wallows in noise and nuance, the audience are treated to deep grooves, narrative rhythms all the while mooted in a death-grind delivery.

Cold Ceiling skills at creating moments of serenity and subliminal with ease and skill, are a welcome juxtaposition to the other two opening acts tonight, and while, when they do form the barricades, launching their waves of noise. It is the moments of refrain that create the validity in this scriber lamenting the loss of the band as a regular feature in Tamaki Makaurau’s creative community.

Imperial Triumphant

It’s pretty full in the room tonight, and the faithful and fascinated are crowding the stage front. Through this all (the band room is on the other side of the room) the three members of Imperial Triumphant in regalia, walk through the crowd, as the sweet sounds of the title track from Goldstar fill the ship. Gentility slides into darkness with little aplomb (well the spectacle has already been seen) as guitar with shafts of jazzism, growling vocals, discordant bass rhythms, and compositional complexities create perplexile and charismatic responses.

Wearing masks, means there are no facial visuals, singing signs to instruct and cicerone the audience, the experience of interaction is restricted, while the two axemen use their hands to subliminally message sporadically, it’s it the immersion of totality, sound and vision that elicit people’s responses. Imperial Triumphant are assigned, or accused (depending on which side of the barricade you are) of being instinctual jazz influenced. This is most inferred by the frantic creativity of bassist Steve Blanco, as he contorted himself on stage, treating his instrument as though it were a second six-string-guitar, or a double bass. Bass runs not expected from a Black Metal band are dotted, scattered through the show tonight, adding a truly unique and edifying attractiveness and spectacle. Then there is the bass solo, bass song? Almost an interpretational bass theatre interlude.

Weird is a word used by the indolent, but it fails miserably to distinguish the band. Imperial Triumphant tonight are presenting a vision of black metal that is aesthetically embracive. The core elements of BM are bolstered, the hazed driving wall of sound, the helter skelter rhythms and the raspy toned vocals. The use of vocoder, audio samples, jazz timings and gothic americana create an array of soundscapes that either invite or intimidate the audience to mahi for the pleasure tonight. Imperial Triumphant is an immersive experience, an avant garde experience, an experience that the temperate of the scene may have found testing tonight.

In a set tonight, evenly split between songs from Goldstar and past compositions, the encore was a true spectacle as the band returned to their ruma through the crowd, and then back again to perform Swarming Opulence from their 2018 album Vile Luxury. Salutations to the Show Promoter (and Imperial Triumphant) tonight for enabling such a gargantuan show. E Rawe!