Rating: 9.5

Country: Germany

Release Date: 2004

Record Label: Black Hate Productions

Track list:
1. Nothing as Darkness 04:02
2. The Seed 04:54
3. The Unknown Light 07:39
4. Crimson Storm 04:34
5. Iron Grave 03:42
6. Burning Hate 04:49
7. The Seed Is Rising 05:29
8. Die rückkehr der tollwütigen bestie 03:59
9. In Jeraspunta 07:10

Total playing time 46:19

Band Website: Dark Tribe

Dark Tribe - In Jeraspunta - Die Rückkehr der Tollwütigen Bestie

Asordis - all guitars, bass and vocals
Paranoth - drums and vocals

From the first explosive note to the despondent finale, Dark Tribe's second album is through every second of its duration sense destroyingly overwhelming. Imagine the primitive human from 2001 – A Space Odyssey touching the black monolith and instead of benign information,  has soul obliterating truths about existence poured into his poor monkey brain, after which the monolith grows a fanged mouth and eats him, crushing his frail frame into a bloody paste. That is vaguely comparable to the first impression this album could inflict upon a poor unprepared listener.

This thing is huge, monolithic. Exceedingly heavy monster riffing descends from miles above, employing some of the most unorthodox and dissonant note progressions in the genre, accompanied by almost tribal sounding vicious drumming while a complete madmen screams incoherencies and blasphemies against nature. And it will not stop, not relent for an instant, the completely insane chord progressions doubling up in a vile mockery of harmony, morphing and twisting into ever new hideous forms. In some rare instants the riffing will slow down into a more recognizable form, but these will employ such despondent, soul crushing melodies that little relief is gained before the madness returns with a vengeance terrifying to behold. And even these more melodious, slower segments share in the forward, upward drive as the rest of the album, making heavy use of a technique that foregoes musical resolution in favor of ever greater musical tension.

In Jeraspunta seems to follow a kind of Nietzschean psychological development, where the formerly rational man becomes aware of the complete relativity of truth and morality, goes through an extreme existential crisis, and eventually embraces amorality and the pliability of truth, becoming one with irrationality. Except in the terrifying picture painted by Dark Tribe's music this will probably also involve ancient extra dimensional deities, the warping of reality, the physical transformation of the self into the monstrous, and extreme violence and destruction culminating in the ultimate annihilation of everything.

In an accomplishment defying reason, each new song on the album is even more intense and inhuman then the previous one, without fail. Where the opening salvos of Jeraspunta are still somewhat comparable to other dissonant acts, by the time the halfway point is reached any semblance with convention is completely and truly vanquished, the churning riffs inverting order and thus ascending ever onwards towards an abyss of glorious insanity.

And it is indeed glorious. As with every passing second more parts of the human self are discarded in favor of something... Other, the music starts taking on a jubilant, almost worshiping tone, subtly weaving its way throughout chunky sense crushing chordage and the insidious sway of tremolo note progressions. This aided in no small part through the clean chanting that becomes more and more prominent past the halfway mark, presenting a new type of knowledge and faith suitable to the Earth left behind after the scouring.

And then the final triptych of songs start, surpassing all others in their awe inspiring unreason and exquisite metaphysical violence, each new plateau of extremity reached painting a sublime tapestry of sundered dreams and shattered realities, exultantly moving through the carnage as only an inhuman God can. For in this new world are only two beings, the divine mad and the victims. The last song heralds the closure of the human age with the disturbing religious chanting of vocals and guitars in tandem trading places with demented riff and drum segments of such savagery and speed that the previous forty minutes of mayhem pale in comparison. Finally as the last vestiges of stability disintegrate, the last despairing melody sets in amidst the last few screamed gibberings of the dead and dying as the curtain falls for humanity. And thus, all ends.

Released during the closure of 2004, this album has stood the test of time. Eschewing the limelight, Dark Tribe remains an enigma, existing only as a shadowy collective of individuals unleashing the occasional musical terror upon man before vanishing again, leaving only their audial blasphemies behind as their legacy, to be found and appreciated only by the deserving. All those who seek something more in their music and who've found themselves in an existential conundrum and relished the freedom it ultimately provided would do best to track this down for new insights into the extreme and the breaking of boundaries. All others can stick with their reality, where metal is just music played on loud guitars in a scene that is but a reflection of modern society with its fashions, socializing and politicking, safe and mundane.

I, however, shall jump headfirst into the Abyss with Dark Tribe. Perhaps you can join us?

May 7th, 2008