Tribe After Tribe - Love Under Will

Most of these reviews will have some form of anecdote about me and the band/album in question. With Tribe After Tribe I get a little closer to the actual band, firstly they were originally formed in South African, and secondly a good friend of mine once ate lots of magic mushrooms with Robbi Robb, the singer/guitarist/chief strategy officer for Tribe After Tribe.

Most South African bands dream of an ascendancy to stardom which will take them on a world tour, sign them to a record deal and free them from the desperately sad no-one-really-gives-a-crap tour in Johannesburg and Cape Town. I guess most bands world wide probably aspire a similar thing. From a South African perspective Tribe After Tribe would be quite a hit, they have done big world tours and had videos on MTV etc. But the "would be" part is needed because they aren't really a South African band anymore.

One last digression before we get into the actual review: Love Under Will is a line from Aleister Crowley's The Book Of the Law, line 57 to be exact. I don't know if there is any significance to this, I just realised it when I was reading up on Crowley.

So, this album is gets 4/5 for me. Its interesting, and starts off really well but they last few tracks tend to slow down and seem a little inconsistent with the rest of album. Its not really heavy enough to be heavy metal, but they did tour with Megadeth, so they are definitely up there. Its probably best described them as Acid Rock with an African flavour. The African influences are obviously present with the choral singing (specifically track 14), and more subtely in the way they use percussion and sliding into and out of notes in a African music kinda way. Just watch some SABC and you'll see what I mean.

The highlight of this album is the awesome drummer and his use of toms. Fantastic! The album is worth it for this along. The drums on Love Under Will were played by Chris Frazier. Its a whole percussive experience. Listen to the drums on this live video of Tribe After Tribe from 1992.

The rest is of it is okay, and different enough from standard rock to be interesting. Personally I would have preferred a fatter bottom on the mix. The bass sits a little too close to the mid-range for my taste. Definitely worth a listen if you have never heard Tribe After Tribe before.