JazzMetal
Imperial Triumphant’s keyboardist and bassist plays the band’s music alone at the piano, in a fifty-seat room in El Born
| Date | Wednesday 11 November 2026 |
| Venue | El Forn de les Arts |
| Address | Carrer de la Blanqueria, 9, local 3 — Barcelona |
| Doors | 6.30pm |
| Start | 7pm |
| Price | $13.96 including fees (the organiser sells in dollars) |
| Promoter | Not listed: the Eventbrite profile gives no name |
Steve Blanco plays El Forn de les Arts, on Carrer de la Blanqueria, on Wednesday 11 November. Doors are at half past six in the evening and the recital starts at seven; tickets are $13.96 with fees included and are sold through Eventbrite. The price is in that currency because it is the one the seller uses: the event listing declares dollars.
Blanco plays keyboards and bass in Imperial Triumphant, the New York trio that runs extreme metal through jazz harmony and brass. Here he comes alone, with a piano.
What he brings is “Imprints of Man”, released on 15 November 2025. There are seven tracks: six Imperial Triumphant songs arranged for piano — “Merkurius Gilded”, “Swarming Opulence”, “Gotham Luxe”, “Rotted Futures”, “Crushing the Idol” and “Maximalist Scream” — and Bach’s F sharp minor fugue. He recorded it at GB’s Juke Joint in New York in November 2023, produced it with Zachary Ezrin, the band’s guitarist and singer, and Benny Black mixed and mastered it.
The listing says he performs the album in its entirety, “blending interpretation and improvisation”.
The room is part of the plan. El Forn de les Arts is 215 square metres with a hall and bar and a main room holding a Yamaha G5 grand piano, and it seats fifty at most. The soprano Ana Belén Gómez opened it and mostly programmes opera and chamber music there. On the album cover, Blanco is playing a Steinway.
There are three European dates and this is the only Catalan one: before it come Prague, on 5 November at Pianotéka Zahradník, and Madrid, on the 10th at the Hinves piano gallery, which has sold out, with a waiting list open.
Imperial Triumphant have played Barcelona three times: Razzmatazz 3 on 23 November 2019 with Altarage, the same room on 24 August 2022 behind “Spirit Of Ecstasy”, and Sala Apolo on 4 October 2025, opening at half past six for Master Boot Record and Igorrr.
Text by Aina Torrents