Texas death metal is something else, man. What the fuck is going on down there? There’s a stack of bands from there that have grabbed the underground by the inner thigh hairs and swung us around with ridiculous, heaving weight and groove (HAUNTER, RELEASE A NEW ALBUM AND MY LIFE IS YOURS), and one of my faves in the last few years is Tribal Gaze. Others clearly agreed – their debut The Nine Choirs impressed a few years ago with co-conspirators Maggot Stomp and Closed Casket Activities, so much so that this new one, Inveighing Brilliance, got Nuclear Blast reaching out to help this time around. Some bands fizzle out and go flaccid when transitioning from underground and indie to, uh… slightly less underground and indie, but I’m happy to say this quartet avoided the sophomore slump.
Listening to Tribal Gaze is like being chased through the woods by a berserk Conan the Barbarian and he’s really fat. One of those death metal bands that sits melody up front, their writing and skill is immediately apparent, the kind of band that you see a new single or album pop up from and you instinctively love it already purely off the strength of previous work. That’s how I felt seeing “Beyond Recognition” slap me across the mouth when it popped up on my YouTube recs on release. I didn’t need to hear it to know it was good, but I still did. Though Tribal Gaze is diverse in their pacing and mood, they’re best when it’s slow and low, and that’s precisely what the song gives for about the first minute before turning into a ripping nightmare with tough drums and yelping guitar solos. The best part? It’s one of the least impressive songs on the album.
That’s relative of course, but it’s not exactly surprising when a single is just good enough to hook you and the deep cuts stomp you out with a higher payout of quality and replayability. Literally, every other goddamn song here is a wrecking ball of fat-ass death metal delight that has a lot of ire for the institutions of religion. I mean, same – I was already on board, y’all, no need to sweeten the deal. If you like quicker plays of death metal like the single above, “Guarding the Illusion” should further satiate you. It’s a tempest of bone and blood, the guitars are gritty and tuned down in hell, and there’s more than enough change-ups in its 3:25 playtime to keep things interesting. “The Irreversible Sequence” slaughters in similar ways, just unbounded whip lashings of thrashy percussion and classic death metal guitars that sound like they should be on the evening news with how murderous they are.
Second single (which I didn’t hear until the full album – again, my faith was already validated) “To the Spoils of Faith” gets downright guttural on all fronts though. Now THIS is my kind of single. The melody is so fucking raw and dense, it’s real caveman hours when this MF comes on each album loop. I know this one’ll go absolutely ignorant in the pits when they play live. It holds strong to its pace and mood throughout as well which is to its benefit. As much as I like Tribal Gaze doing different stuff and mixing it up, I just need one or two (or three) songs to treat me like a base creature that doesn’t know what taxes or fascism are for once. I love “Draped in Piercing Radiance” for bringing up the rear of the LP in a similar fashion as well with the same violent guitar chugs, but it’s got some nice two-step energy to it by the time the verse kicks in. Lovely alteration to the formula.
And no matter what the hell is going on, you can always count on the vocals to be top notch. While it doesn’t seem like he’s doing anything especially groundbreaking, vocalist McKenna Holland still stands out with the immense power and control he has on the mic. “To the Spoils of Faith” is a great example of what he’s capable of, commanding attention well above his mates who are also putting in the work to make Inveighing Brilliance as hard and memorable as possible. Not to be outdone though, drummer Cesar De Los Santos has plenty of space (and talent) to show off. Each song is what it is because of him, dictating the rhythm and sonic tone that the band strives for track to track – he even gets a nice extended solo spot at the end of album closer “Lord of Blasphemy”, which was a nice little throwback to when albums had ‘hidden’ tracks at the end.
It’s very much worth noting that Tribal Gaze is a pretty green band. Though around for five years now, the members still don’t appear to have the breadth of experience and time put in that many, many of their peers do. You really can’t tell because they’re putting belt to ass when it comes to high-execution, no-frills, groovy death metal that conveys the brutality and heaviness that genre demands. Like The Nine Choirs, Inveighing Brilliance is another reason to not write off the genre as I’m constantly threatening to do, and doesn’t show any compromise from bigger budgets and players being involved. Well, thank God goodness for that. Press play and bite that curb, y’all.
