I've been a fan of Tristwood for almost 20 years now and first met the guys at a Nuclear Assault gig when they were handing out their first album "Fragments of the Mechanical Unbecoming" to the craziest guys in the mosh pit. Deimon and Neru were already household names at the time due to their previous bands, at least one of which was internationally successful, and Jegger was the youngster in the band. All three of them had this completely unique or idiosyncratic way of talking to people. And my goodness, those guys could drink. Over the years I met and watched them again and again, bought their second release "Amygdala" with Axumis as the new singer.
I can only say one thing: I had never heard anything so brute and was of course flattened accordingly. One evening I spoke to Neru, the wiry string whiz, about this album in some underground bar in Innsbruck and I can only say that I was really weak-kneed. The guys were exactly the continuation of everything I had wished for from the extreme metal and black metal of the 90s, and I thought they were going to go through the roof. But the guys just wanted to make music, they just wanted to record albums, as Neru assured me. At the time, I thought that was just something they said. Then, months later, I heard that Tristwood had a record deal and were releasing a new album. And then, yes, then "The Delphic Doctrine" was available to buy in Austrian music shops. I took the record home and put it in my CD player.
What happened next I can only describe as a musical journey, a revelation. I've listened to the album hundreds of times since then. These synths, this continuation of the Tristwood style, this weaving in of oriental sounds, these blatant blast beats, these hits: anyone who knows Tristwood will have fallen for the aura of this band with this album at the latest. I met the guys a few more times and of course I behaved like a total fan, wanted autographs, bought their T-shirts. At the time, I realised that Deimon, Axumis, Jegger and Neru, as well as Yak and HMG, were very uncomfortable with the hype surrounding them. Jegger in particular quickly hid away in the mountains, as we heard, Deimon moved into a huge garden and never showed his face again, and Neru almost left the band. And I quickly realised that the guys had talent, but didn't want to and couldn't deal with people.
As polite as they may be online, they were and still are hermetic and withdrawn. And that is exactly what characterises this band: It has remained a unique musical jewel due to its nature, embodying everything that many black metal bands only write on their flags for marketing reasons: Tristwood is full of individuality, uniqueness, unpredictability, anti-commerciality and they still show today what underground really means.

Written by The Stormshadow