We continue to count down the finest slabs of metal from the last year, as chosen by the devout scribes here at BW&BK;/BraveWords.com. As with previous years, each writer was asked to pick his top 20 albums of the year (no live records, compilations or covers etc...). We perform a little behind-the-scenes metal math and voila, we have our list! We'll be counting down the Top 30 all month - yup, one a day until we get to New Year's - yes, we're aware that December has 31 daze but we thought we'd let you hang until January 1st!

It's time for #22 - drum roll please...

#22 - TRIPTYKON - Eparistera Daimones (Century Media)

TRIPTYKON, the group founded by former HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST singer and guitarist Tom Gabriel Warrior, released their debut album, Eparistera Daimones, in March and featured epic artwork by renowned Swiss artist H.R. Giger and New York-based surrealist Vincent Castiglia.

In an exceptionally rare gesture, HR Giger granted Triptykon the use of his dramatic painting Vlad Tepes (work no. 412, 200 x 140 cm, acrylic on paper on wood, 1978). It is the artist's first authorized appearance on an album cover in 17 years, and the second time he collaborates with Warrior (following Celtic Frost's To Mega Therion album in 1985).

"Triptykon is to a very large extent my music and entirely my lyrics, and Triptykon follows the concept I wanted to pursue with Celtic Frost," writes Warrior. "We recorded and mixed Triptykon's Eparistera Daimones album at the studio we were going to use for the successor of Monotheist (Celtic Frost's final album), it was engineered by V. Santura as originally intended for the successor of Monotheist, it contains much of the music I wrote for the successor of Monotheist, it uses the cover art and concept I originally proposed for the successor of Monotheist, and Triptykon is working with the same webmasters, management, record company, concert agency, and crew as Celtic Frost did. I was simply honest when I formed Triptykon. The band that had been so important and special to all of us, Celtic Frost, had ceased to exist, and any attempt to continue it with the same name would have amounted to an insult to our fans' (and my own) intelligence. This will mark the musical culmination of some two years of work on this project. Regardless of whether one will hate or love the music we have created with Triptykon, Eparistera Daimones is an album with a very unique background and a truly unique history. Neither of which have been contrived. Come what may, nothing will ever be able to diminish that."

In his BraveWords.com review Mark Gromen wrote: "Listen to Eparistera Daimones with curtains drawn and you will surely feel how Fischer has purposefully absorbed the darkness into his creative spirit, surpassing even the suffocating black of Monotheist and taking his devotion to the riff into uncharted and uniquely disturbing territory. This is as much a doom metal record as an avant-garde piece...

Read Mark's entire review here.

Brave Picks Top 30 Of 2010

#30 - STONE SOUR: Audio Secrecy (Roadrunner)

#29 - APOCALYPTICA - 7th Symphony (Sony)

#28 - TWILIGHT: Monument To Time End (Southern Lord)

#27 - HAIL OF BULLETS - On Divine Winds (Metal Blade)

#26 - FORBIDDEN - Omega Wave (Nuclear Blast)

#25 - KROKUS - Hoodoo (Columbia)

#24 - AIRBOURNE - No Guts. No Glory. (Roadrunner)

#23 - SOILWORK - The Panic Broadcast (Nuclear Blast)

#22 - TRIPTYKON - Eparistera Daimones (Century Media)