Tom G. Warrior has one of the most metal pedigrees imaginable. Between the incendiary thrum of Hellhammer and the infernal roar of Celtic Frost, the Swiss musician helped lay the foundation that every death and black-metal band thereafter would build upon.
And don't low-rate his current band Triptykon, who specialize in cataclysmic death-doom dirges that put extreme-metal artists half Warrior's age to shame. The guy is responsible for some of the gnarliest headbanging music of all time, but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate the polar opposite spectrum of sounds.
In honor of the debut live album from Warrior's latest project Triumph of Death — a tribute band, of sorts, who raise Hellhammer's music from the dead — we asked Warrior to put aside heavy metal for a second and select five amazing non-metal albums that he holds near and dear.
From "Bowie at his underground best" to an album that's "as close as music can get to art," see all of Warrior's picks below, and why he thinks metalheads should give them all a try.
Triumph of Death's Resurrection of the Flesh is due out November 10th via Noise/BMG, and can be pre-ordered here.
Brendan Perry - Ark
Brendan Perry is one of the two individuals behind the phenomenal Dead Can Dance. I deeply adore his songwriting, and his releases — both with DCD and solo — have been a source of joy and inspiration to me for decades.
Unfortunately, his pace is even slower than mine with regard to releasing albums, and so there are only two genuine solo albums by him so far. Both are outstanding, but Ark is slightly superior.
Its music is sheer poetry, and its philosophical lyrics — serious, observant, and cynical as they are — always remain restrained and magnificent.
David Bowie - Heroes
At times strange and cumbersome, at times [the embodiment] of utter aesthetic beauty, this album shows Bowie at his underground best.
It's a collaboration between Bowie, Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and Tony Visconti, and it captures the oppressive darkness and, at the same time, intriguingly stimulating artistic atmosphere of Cold War West Berlin — something very familiar to me, having later repeatedly recorded in West Berlin and also at the very same studio, Hansa.
This was the first Bowie album I physically owned, and it had a lasting effect on me, to this day.
Dive - Behind the Sun
Dive is a Belgian one-man electronic project notable for its rather non-commercial, experimental approach and use of distortion. I have always loved Dive's work for its extremity in both music and lead vocals, and this is also what I feel connects it, in spirit, to extreme metal.
I love almost all of Dive's releases, but to me, Behind the Sun is possibly their most consistent release. This was probably the album I played most when I reformed Celtic Frost with Martin Eric Ain in the early 2000s, and it's also an album that I still frequently revisit.
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music's body of work can be divided into two categories: the early albums that consisted of rock, proto-new-wave and experimentalism, and the later albums that were best suited as background music for luxury department stores.
I first heard Roxy Music as a young teenager in the early 1970s, when they were still fully adventurous — initially also featuring Brian Eno in their lineup — and their arty approach became a life-long, major inspiration for me.
I chose For Your Pleasure as a typical representation of this era, but it really could be any of their first five albums.
Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
Talk Talk are known to mostly for their mid-1980s hit singles, but this formerly underrated album is as close as music can get to art. It's a mixture of New Wave, ambient, progressive, folk and many other genres, and its melodies, sensitivity, subtlety and beauty serve to make it come across as an aural painting.
Spirit of Eden is an album that has never aged for me ever since I first heard it, and I wish I was capable of such profound aesthetics in my own work as a musician.
