Switzerland is multilingual on top in Europe with four national languages. Due to masterpieces of Helvetian veterans like Celtic Frost, Samael or Messiah, it’s, of course, unthinkable to claim TRIBES OF CAÏN would be automatically heaved to the throne of Swiss Metal because of their German-English-Latin-Norse lyrics only. Restricting the focus on modern, technically versatile Death/Black Metal, the Zurich-based band can stand up to the international scene.
The third album is powerfully produced by Jochen Sachse (Pink Cream 69) and mastered by Peter in de Betou (Opeth, Amon Amarth…) and features technical, extremely complex Black Metal with attention to detail, mixed with a proper pinch of finest progressive Death/Thrash Metal. Retaliation starts furiously. With Reborn With Wings all the tops of blackened Death Metal are pulled out. The wonderful guitar harmonies as a trademark of the band remind in parts of the exquisite guitar work on Night In Gales’ delicate debut Towards The Twilight, but they are balanced with neck breaking Death-/Thrash riffs and mean guitar strums. Merely the quietly mixed vocals are a bit out of line, which is a pity because I don’t find any other fault on singer Sven’s vocal effort.
Boredom never comes up as TRIBES OF CAÏN concentrates on bringing variation into the nine songs and three piano-intermezzi. Mainly variations in tempo, breaks and rhythmic changes, which for example harmonize perfectly with the lyrics e.g. in Hjaðningavíg make the pleasure of listening be extremely diverting.
The band’s interests for the unconventional and unorthodox do not concentrate on music only, but also lyrically. Instead of focusing on striking provocation, for instance parts of the Gylfaginning (a part of Snorri Sturluson’s Younger Edda) are quoted in WiduhudaR. Imaginative lyrics passages such as “Vernichte die Sonne mit all ihrem Schein – Vernichte die Sonne und jegliches Sein” of the aforementioned track announcing the end of the world sounds extremely poetic and exemplifies the importance to convince lyrically, too.
In spite of the parallels to musically similarly acting bands, such as Endstille, Naglfar or the already mentioned Night In Gales, TRIBES OF CAÏN have delivered a husky and original piece of music. One can only hope that the Helvetians, meanwhile reduced to a quartet, soon find a replacement on the drums to be able to stand their ground internationally on an adequate European tour.