Tritonic have made something truly monumental with Oh, Sinai!- a prog-sludge symphonic that does not lend itself to easy categorisation or easy listening. This London quartet takes heavy music as a philosophical question, using homemade fretless guitars as a tool of divine conjecture, stripping the distinctions that usually define accuracy in favour of something that is sometime close to the infinite.
The song begins with unsettling chaos - a rough guitar line that brings instant discomfort at the same time that conscious percussion turns the action into ritual. The vocals of Peter Jewkes have a very distinct timbre that reminded me of the experimental years of Bowie and provided melodic ease to an otherwise harsh sounding. The chorus is more of a chant, its welcoming lines giving the song the effect of an epic which counterbalances the wanton impassability of the track.
What distinguishes "Oh, Sinai!" is its adherence to the purity of the concept without the loss of emotion. All the sounds that were captured were touching the physical world, and that touch was deliberate blemish. The bridge breaks into electronic anarchy, light harmonies clashing with the foundations of hard rock to form really immersive soundscapes. It is not a studio effect but a conscious architectural decision--sounds are increased and played with in actual space, with the burden of actual existence.
The thematic richness is also ambitious. The questions of infinite gnostic Christianity of the past blend with the present personal experience producing a sense of gesamtkunstwerk where the production, themes and performance become one vision. To atheists and agnostics, venturing into such deeply religious territory, Tritonic show an impressive degree of good faith, this is radical music, and it gains its radicalism not by empty provocation but by artistic conviction.
Taped at Marketstall Recording, "Oh, Sinai! is an indication of how Tritonic is trying to redefine the meaning of heavy music. They have touched something deeply human by stumbling at the unknowable with their fretless variance and philosophical inquiry, the unremitting conflict between destruction and creation, between precision and ambiguity, between the finite and the infinite.