Well metalheads, that time of the year has come around again. And whether you’re rockin’ under the mistletoe while headbanging to Twisted Sister’s Heavy Metal Christmas, or whether you’re holed up in a basement listening to Venom’s Black X-Mas, there’s probably a metalhead on your Christmas list who is expecting something other than coal in their stocking.

Well, never fear oh ye holiday headbangers. Geeks of Doom is kind of enough to supply you with the quintessential list of seasonal must-haves for the metal mavens.

Swiss avant-garde metal gods Triptykon have just released a brand new video for the eight-minute-long epic opening track of their masterpiece album Melana Chasmata.

The track is called “Tree of Suffocating Souls” and is the second video from the album, following up the outstanding “Aurorae.” Much like its predecessor, this video is shot entirely in black and white, but this one stands as more of a straight ahead performance clip.

Watch the video for “Tree of Suffocating Souls” here below.

Metal brethren, a quick note that the 2014 Bloodstock Open Air Festival in the UK is happening this weekend and is being live streamed right now!!!

Watch the live stream here below.

The UK metal festival is August 7-10, 2014 and features live performances from bands like Triptykon, Dimmu Borgir, Hatebreed, and Down playing today with Emperor, Carcass, Children of Bodom, and more on Saturday, and Obituary, Saxon, Amon Amarth, and Megadeth, and more on Sunday.

Triptykon, the band led by former Hellhammer and Celtic Frost front man Thomas Gabriel Warrior (aka Thomas Gabriel Fischer, aka Tom G. Warrior), has just released the official video for the song “Aurorae.”

Watch the video for “Aurorae” here below.

The song is the fifth track off the band’s epic album Melana Chasmata, which is currently my frontrunner for album of the year. For my full review of the album, click here.

Melana Chasmata
Triptykon
CD | MP3 | Vinyl
Century Media Records/Prowling Death Records
Release date: April 15, 2014

Tom Gabriel Warrior (aka Tom G. Warrior aka Thomas Gabriel Fischer) is apparently not a man to rest on his laurels. No one could blame the man if, at the age of 50, he were to trudge around a “greatest hits” package just to cash in on his legendary status. After all, he was the driving force behind not one, but two of extreme metal’s most seminal bands, Hellhammer and Celtic Frost. In fact, Warrior is considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of both the black metal and avant-garde metal genres.

But, after an ill-fated Celtic Frost reunion in 2007 failed to heal old wounds between Tom G and his long-time collaborator Martin Ain, he swore off both bands forever — a resolution which was reiterated 7 years later when he turned down an offer of $140,000 for Celtic Frost to play a single, one-hour reunion set as the 2014 headliners of metal’s biggest festival, Wacken Open Air in Germany.

No, Mr. Fischer has no time for a stroll down memory lane, because he is busy working on a trifecta. His latest band, Triptykon, is rapidly establishing itself as one of the most bone-crushingly heavy, black, sludge, doom metal bands in the world.