Trigon - "Continuum" (self-released 2004)
Trigon - "Herzberg 2004" (self-released 2004)

From Aural Innovations #29 (October 2004)

German instrumental heavy rockers Trigon are an active and prolific band. The band released two CD's in 2004, one a live document of their recent performance at the Burg Herzberg festival. On Continuum the band are the trio of Rainer Lange on guitar, Stefan Lange on bass, and Tihomir Lozanovski on drums, who replaced Daniel Beckmann in 2003. The album consists of heavy driving acidic power rock, with the rhythm section providing a foundation upon which Lange's guitar cranks out expressive solos that sometimes focus on melody and at others are just nicely ripping. It's clear that he really puts his thoughts and emotions into his playing. But at its core, Trigon are about good old jamming psych-rock, and jamming is very much what these guys are about. They settle into a groove and explore, often reminding me of early Guru Guru and even at times, Hendrix. The band excel at heavy psych-rock, acid rock ‘n roll, and a jazz influence can often be detected, though it's always within a hard rock context. The music also has a metallic quality, though Trigon are by no means a heavy metal band. The 15 minute "Trigonometrie" is one of the highlights of the set, taking lots of time to really stretch out and explore as they develop their ideas and themes, and getting nicely spacey along the way. Overall Continuum is a tasty set that will appeal to any fan of all instrumental psychedelic heavy rock.

Augmenting the Trigon guitar/bass/drums trio for their performance at the Burg Herzberg 2004 festival are Udo Gerhards (Nekropolis 23, Scythe) on keyboards and Nick Lieto on Flugelhorn. Wow, what an amazing addition the keyboards are! Dark orchestral mellotron combined with the jamming Trigon style on the opening tracks is luscious indeed. A few tracks remind me of the aggressive prog rock of Anekdoten's Vemod album, but with the trademark Rainer Lange heavy rock guitar soloing. I love it. "Wenn Wir Dich Rauchen Schreien Wir" soars headlong into heavy prog-psych realms with powerhouse early 70's organ, á la Deep Purple and Atomic Rooster. We still get lots of tasty guitar work, but the music has more of a composed and thematic feel. Gerhards switches to piano for "Peitscht Das Kamel" which adds an intense jazz flavor to the music. And Lieto's flugelhorn injects a more overtly jazzy influence into the couple of tracks he plays on, which sounds fantastic alongside Lange's psychedelic jazz fusion guitar.

I could go on about each track, but suffice it to say this is an exciting set of hard rock/psych/prog/jazz instrumentals, and features some of the most intense playing and intricately structured music I've heard from Trigon yet. Lange is always an expressive lead guitarist, but on this set he exudes pure passion. Gerhards lives in Munich, whereas Trigon are based in Karlsruhe, so he's only on board as a guest, but the addition is a mighty one, making this my favorite Trigon set yet. And the sound is very good too, so you get every note penetrating your cranium, just as if you were attending the fest yourself. Great stuff.

For more information you can visit the Trigon web site at: http://www.trigon.in/.
Email at: rainer@trigon.in.
Contact via snail mail c/o Rainer Lange; Imberstr. 33; 76227 Karlsruhe; Germany.

Reviewed by Jerry Kranitz

Click your browser's BACK button to return to the previous page.
Or CLICK HERE to return to the main Aural Innovations page.