Tribal Gaze “Inveighing Brilliance”
Only in fucking Texas, man… Everything’s bigger! Everything is more brutal, particularly Texas’ renowned extreme metal scene: Frozen Soul, Creeping Death and Power Trip. And of course there are the Texas legends in bands like: Pantera and DRI, but it’s the above-mentioned Texas DM scene that’s really got my balls in a grinder. Burgeoning into something like the next Tampa it seems. Only bigger of course… From out of Longview, Texas emerges Tribal Gaze…
Tribal Gaze formed in the plague days of 2020 and have since wrought the fruits of devastation with their 2022 debut The Nine Choirs, and are now preparing to reap a blood harvest with their Autumnal offering, Inveighing Brilliance, set for an October 17 release via Nuclear Blast Records. And there is beauty, but it’s the brutality that happens behind the rose bushes that is the ultimate truth…
To wonder about the nature of things is only human, but as we get older, we start to not want to wonder so much anymore. The thrill is gone, the truth has set in. We’re not falling for it, for we know the eldest truth: beauty is only skin deep - a distraction! Bedazzled by the beauty of the forest canopy as you’re being mercilessly devoured by alligators. You see what I’m getting at? For every ounce of beauty, there are two of what is savage. For every second of joy, there are two of misery. Some people choose to live; holding onto the notion that the beautiful side of the world is true! In a blessed state of willful ignorance, while others choose to face the grisly truths that constitute existence on planet Earth. People like Tribal Gaze apparently who’ve chosen to detail this duality through their art. And here we go…
“Smiling from Their Chariots” - right away like a Lone Star hammer of war does Tribal Gaze make their presence felt. Breakdowns and raunchy grinds, tuned way low and wringing your guts with torqued riff after torqued riff, but at a tortuous pace. Breakdowns raining from crimson-soaked skies in the old Asphyx way. And deeper into chasms, into wastes and deeper into our world where flowers bloom and babies die of cancer do we delve, as the following track, “Beyond Recognition”, plays out like some kind of Crowbar meets Gorguts abomination. Gripping you, pulling you deep under, twisting you mercilessly as you gasp for breath and then releasing you up through the depths, out from the surface and into lightning-cracked azure with every hefty groove, gravitational breakdown and soaring lead. So far, apart from its many obvious influences, stylistically, Inveighing Brilliance is a martial Death Metal recording for those of us who appreciate the Doom domain of the genre: zero technicality, bulldozing momentum and just ripping away at the cortex one layer at a time.
Okay, I say this a lot, but it does feel like there are a shit-ton of Death Metal bands that sound like this. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that, as Tribal Gaze’s pedigree happens to be of a well-tread stylistic pathway that was forged by bands like Entombed and Dismember back in the ‘90’s, just with some added Americanization in the breakdown department. Definitely FFO Entombed Left Hand Path and Dying Fetus’ Killing on Adrenaline. Cross the two and hmmm…
Inveighing Brilliance is one of those albums that happens to be moderately nuanced and varied considerably, but it just doesn’t feel that way, and that’s due to the tempo and the tonality of each track. This thing is fucking BRUTAL… It’s got that Creeping Death, caveman vibe to it a la 2019’s “Wretched Illusions”, as opposed to the disturbingly dangerous and depraved gore product. Hammering away at the puddle that was once your head - “Ruling in A Land with No God” - towering riffs and jackhammer snare pops like blunt-force tack hammer blows rain. And then into the grinder with “The Irreversible Sequence”. Faster tempo’d here like getting your arm caught in a wood chipper.
Tribal Gaze no doubt tear it up live and Inveighing Brilliance is a banger of an album. For when you’re in the mood for the heavier side of Death Metal, or the weirder side, as portrayed by the titular track. Either way, not a bad experience at all. Dumb it down just a bit for this one. Try to tap into that youthful mindset of appreciating Death Metal for all of its baser elements: slamming rhythms, mammoth riffs, crunching breakdowns and ripping leads. If you can accomplish that, you will most certainly enjoy Inveighing Brilliance. And killer drum solo during “Lord of Blasphemy”!
SCORE: 8 / 10
You can purchase on Tribal Gaze’s Bandcamp or stream it on the band’s Spotify.
