Over the last few decades, Kenny Grohowski has worked within the music industry as a drummer, percussionist, arranger, and songwriter/composer. Kenny is a rhythmic master and a drummer in demand in NYC and around the world. He’s played and toured extensively with John Zorn as well as working with Secret Chiefs 3, Brand X, Lonnie Plaxico Group, Imperial Triumphant, PAKT, Khem, Kilter, and Titans of Tachyons. He stays wide open in his approach to music, working with multitudes of artists in multiple fields and genres, including jazz, metal, classical, rock, and beyond.
This track is called “Pleasuredome” and is from the band’s upcoming album, ‘Goldstar,’ which will be released on 3/21 via Century Media Records.
Pre-Order Here: https://centurymedia.store/pages/imperial-triumphant-gold-star
Kenny’s Links:
www.instagram.com/KennyGrohowski
www.facebook.com/imperialtriumphant
www.instagram.com/imperialtriumphant
Kenny’s Gear:
Drums:
Tama Starclassic
12” rack tom
14” floor tom
16” floor tom
6”x14” DW Bronze snare
Cymbals (L-R)
18” Gold China
14” Turk Hi Hats
12” Gold Flange Bell
18” 25th Anniversary Crash
19” Gold Raw Crash
14” Gold Hi Hats
20” Paiste Signature Dry Heavy Ride
18” Zildjian S China
*Cymbals are Bosphorus except where listed
Pedals:
Pearl Eliminators
Drumsticks
Vic Firth 2B
Imperial Triumphant Line-Up:
Zachary Ezrin – Vocals, Guitar
Steve Blanco – Bass
Kenny Grohowski – Drums
Discography:
Obeisance EP (2010)
Abominamentvm (2012)
Goliath EP (2013)
Abyssal Gods (2015)
Inceste EP (2016)
Vile Luxury (2018)
Alphaville (2020)
Spirit of Ecstasy (2022)
Vile Luxury (Redux 1924) (2024)
Goldstar Track Listing:
1. Eye of Mars
2. Gomorrah Nouveaux
3. Lexington Delirium
4. Hotel Sphinx
5. NEWYORKCITY
6. Goldstar
7. Rot Moderne
8. Pleasuredome
9. Industry of Misery
The Decibel Magazine Tour 2025 dates w/ Mayhem, Mortiis, Imperial Triumphant, New Skeletal Faces
Mar 17, 2025: Atlanta, GA – The Masquerade (Heaven)
Mar 18, 2025: Nashville, TN – Brooklyn Bowl
Mar 19, 2025: Indianapolis, IN – The Vogue
Mar 20, 2025: Chicago, IL – House of Blues
Mar 22, 2025: Worcester, MA – The Palladium
Mar 23, 2025: Reading, PA – Reverb
Mar 24, 2025: New York, NY – Irving Plaza
Mar 25, 2025: Montreal, QC – Théâtre Beanfield
Mar 26, 2025: Toronto, ON – The Concert Hall
Mar 27, 2025: Detroit, MI – The Majestic Theatre
Mar 29, 2025: Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
Mar 31, 2025: Denver, CO – Summit
Apr 3, 2025: Calgary, AB – The Palace Theatre
Apr 4, 2025: Edmonton, AB – Union Hall
Apr 6, 2025: Vancouver, BC – Rickshaw Theatre
Apr 7, 2025: Tacoma, WA – Temple Theatre
Apr 9, 2025: San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
Apr 10, 2025: Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
Apr 11, 2025: Los Angeles, CA – The Belasco
Apr 12, 2025: San Diego, CA – House of Blues
Apr 13, 2025: Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
Apr 14, 2025: Mesa, AZ – The Nile
Apr 16, 2025: Dallas, TX – The Echo Lounge & Music Hall
Apr 17, 2025: Austin, TX – Mohawk
About Imperial Triumphant:
There’s a murmuring amidst the monoliths of New York City as the sounds of the megalopolis churn below. The city becomes the sound of a human engine that throbs like an atrophying heartbeat, the decaying city of the future in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. That’s the grandiosity that New Yorkers, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT, have found equal amounts of beauty and horror within. With their latest release, Goldstar, the masked triumvirate, continues their exploration of the urban and arcane. The band has found inspiration in the sound of metal pushed to its darkest extremes, gilded art deco temples, and looming cityscapes.
“The theme of every IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT record is New York City – that’s the fuel,” states guitarist and vocalizer, Zachary Ezrin, who has been the voice behind the band’s sonic expressionism since its founding in the shadow of the millennium. With bassist Steve Blanco and drummer Kenny Grohowski, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT has expanded the language of musical extremity with records including Vile Luxury (2020), Alphaville (2021) and Spirit of Ecstasy (2023). Not surprisingly, they’ve made a point to stay as oblique as possible, appearing in gleaming masks and dark cloaks onstage while never divulging their lyrics’ meaning. “We want people to draw their own conclusions,” says Ezrin. “I want it to be not so cut and dry, good and evil.” In keeping with their foundation of dark eccentricity, IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT has also continued building their meta-mythos in the title of the album itself.
While IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT has established itself as a portent of sonic improvisation and experimentation, Goldstar reins in their musical wanderlust with a newfound focus that the band has only hinted at with past works. Tracks like the album’s explosive opener, “Eye of Mars,” or the stirring “Hotel Sphinx” clock in around the five-minute mark while upping the trio’s songwriting acumen and musical virtuosity. “It’s a challenge we posed to ourselves,” says Ezrin, who credits the sonic shift, in part, to two years of relentless worldwide touring, playing countless festivals including France’s Hellfest, the Czech Republic’s Brutal Assault or tours with the likes of Behemoth, Carcass and Zeal & Ardor.
“We did a covers EP last year, where we took songs from bands like Rush and Metallica as well as artists like Miles Davis and made them our own,” Zachary recounts. “That informed us of the potential of classic songwriting. Also, touring as hard as we did, we found ourselves with a lot of opening and support slots that were 30-35, and it was a drag to only be able to play three or four songs because they were eight or nine minutes long! We wanted to have a more flexible set and really play some rippers, playing songs that were totally authentic but totally IMPERIAL without every song being some long opus. In the end, I believe that putting creative restrictions on ourselves makes for better choices and better art. That’s what’s really pushed us towards Goldstar.”
Those self-imposed creative parameters paid off. Recorded in early 2024 with longtime collaborator and producer, Colin Marston (Gorguts, Krallice) as the final project recorded at Marston’s Menegroth Studios in Queens, New York, Goldstar was done in a breakneck five days. “We got an offer to tour with Abbath, so we had to shift our recording schedule. We just threw down, and the results speak for themselves. This was hardly our [Guns N Roses] Chinese Democracy with too many resources and too much money ruining the purity of something! This is more of our Appetite for Destruction!”
“One silver lining of living in New York City,” says Zach. “It is one of the greatest places in the world for great artists to congregate, and you can collaborate with these incredible, talented people in this sort of shared suffering.” IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT invited long-running accomplice, Meshuggah drummer Thomas Haake to join them in the studio for the track “Lexington Delirium.”
Haake would contribute his trademark ominous, spoken vocals to the proceedings, while another drumming legend, Dave Lombardo, would join in on “Pleasuredome,” which also features Haake’s vocal presence. “We met [Lombardo] two years ago at Motorcultor [Festival] in France. We were playing, and Lombardo and Alex Skolnick were watching from the side stage. Afterward, he told me that we were really inspiring for him, and I just looked at him and said, ‘You got it all wrong; you inspire me, dude!’”
Goldstar is IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT’s most instant and evocative works to date. It bridges the avant-garde and the present in a way they’ve never done before. “There’s a lot more forgiveness to the listener,” Ezrin shares. “The length of the songs makes it much more palatable”. It’s also the band’s most ambitious album to date, swerving into North African Gnawa music on “Gomorrah Nouveaux”, Brazilian Maracatu on “Pleasuredome”, and an ode to classic NYC architecture on “Lexington Delirium” – “It’s our love letter to the Chrysler Building,” says Zach. “We shot a video there and the last person to shoot there was Francis Ford Coppola for Megalopolis!” – and forays into the unmerciful and extreme with the likes of “Hotel Sphinx”. “That one’s got heavy nods to Stanley Kubrick,” says Zach. “That’s something we’ve never been shy about.
“We also have songs like ‘NEWYORKCITY”, which is kind of a Dada-ist grindcore song,” the guitarist laughs. “We told Colin to roll tape and cut us off after 30 seconds of us just instinctively bashing something into a free, improvised grindcore piece. The song is all about the weight and heaviness, and brutality of living in New York. Then, of course, every track is panned vertically, so it sounds like one brutal instrument.”
Expect a gilded mask-lift when IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT returns to the stage. For all their rich, musical indulgence and Knitting Factory-honed musicianship, onstage theatricality has always been a key factor in the three New Yorkers’ live showings. New masks and an upgraded stage show will be part of their live experience with Goldstar and beyond. “When you look at bands like Slipknot and Ghost, there always is a new show to keep fans engaged and continue to translate the music in the sickest way possible. This isn’t a recital; it’s heavy metal to the core!” Down to Bielak’s signature highly detailed future-noir artwork, which once again adorns that album’s cover in classic cigarette packaging, IMPERIAL’s world-building continues on gilded girders.
“We want people to remember IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT as a band that pushed metal music forward,” says Zachary, summing up the New York trio’s stamp on the scene. “A band that created records that had not existed previously. And hopefully inspire others to look beyond just metal into other places: film, classical music, world music, architecture, to find a new kind of approach to the metal itself.” Goldstar is a long, cool drag and as intense an urban fever dream as only IMPERIAL TRIUMPHANT can deliver.
