von Oliver
am 7. September 2023
in Single
Imperial Triumphant present the third part of their cover series: Auf Paranoid Android von Radiohead and A Night In Tunisia by Dizzy Gillespie follows Jacob’s Ladder von Rush.
Let’s start again: Steve Blanco – why have Imperial Triumphant chose the piece from 1980? “Ascension towards a higher place through twelve ancient steps of Jacob’s Ladder. Rush‘s influence is undoubtedly far and wide in so much heavy music, and although we consider our music quite different from theirs, a strong thread holds it all together. As big fans of their giant body of work, we wanted to include a song in our cover series to pay tribute to this great unique band. We also wanted the cover image to reflect the legendary ‘Permanent Waves’ artwork.“
As a mystical, dry arpeggio march over ghostly nebulous organ swaths, hissing strings and the dynamic heaviness of the interlocked drumming, the mood is set Imperial Triumphant but noticeably more sinister and disturbingly apocalyptic than at Rushwhen the New Yorker trio wails dissonant avant-garde death metal like muddy mud waves in slow motion over the muted bass, while remaining true to the original at the same time as they assimilate their own aesthetic signature so formatively into the essence of the composition.
What’s really successful and striking is how the epic guitar figures now feel even more heroic, while the stoic staccato builds into a frenzy and indulges in psychedelic space textures before Jacob’s Ladder first descends into the backwards ambient nightmare, only to then rebuild itself as an intricate prog spectacle and shows a patience that is commendable. In short: Whether Neil Peart would have liked the result is at least very questionable, as the majority of listeners (and even the company’s own fan base). Imperial Triumphant) seems to hate the interpretation, almost a traditional reaction to the outpouring of the cover series, which here, in its polarizing self-confidence, delivers the band’s second great cover in a row.
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