Inferno

It is not very easy to describe "John Gill" ideas and creative process, as it isn't easy to elaborate for some misguided souls what Black Tribe is all about. Hell, even I haven't reached illumination, but the basic idea behind this sort of music is disdain. This man spits on everything that is bland and meant only for the sole purpose of entertainment. Values, as most people imagine them, are of a non-interest to this man, ans so his reflection inside his music. The cover of Mayhem's "Pure Fucking Armageddon" is alone a reason for someone to get into this.

Black Tribe's Inferno is as minimalistic as it tries to reach a professional level of mature music, but regarding the poor equipment used to record this music, reaches only a shadow of what it could be. If you try to grasp the pure essence of this music it may be dark, grim or whatever you like to call really lo-fi downtuned music, but it fails at sounding mature on every scale, resembling only a skeleton of ideas that could be encased in a much more convincing body, rather than weak and hollow industrial tones playing as a really squishy guitar plays in the background. Most of this reminds me of some early 90s MIDI music, for example the Dune 2 soundtrack, if anyone remembers that one. While it may not be as comical as I put it, the music here still is quite disorientated at many points of the album (demo). The constant reminders of 90s PC-games continue as the demo progresses, which is due to the recording assets. As for the overall theme, just read the song names: "Semtex and cocaine", "I am the Death". This is the creative mind of a madman, or at least of somebody that has chosen the creative process over anything that may seem nice and bland. The music that you get here is related to the hateful vein of black metal, but has so many other experimental and bold elements that reduces the overall "black" atmosphere, but still maintaining a certain pissed off edge. The commitment to the music is genuine. The structure of the songs is genuine. The only thing that's lacking here is proper equipment. Listening to this music will make you hate other people even more. John Gill's rasp is one of the most evil and authentic rasps I've heard in a long time. Even with the poor quality, this man's vocals come through the speakers with a vengeance.

While some songs may be too experimental for some to cope with, resembling only a fading beat with some non memorable parts, there still is an epic edge to the whole, that keeps the record interesting. "Funeral Obsession" is one of those songs which nearly reaches the mood it was supposed to induce. Increasing volume will certainly help making this demo very enjoyable, but will also induce feelings of desolation. A lot has
happened between 2002 and today, as the music coming from this "band" has developed into something far more skin-peeling than the earlier premature works. Still, this is a treat for anytime, as this demo is better than your average piss-cellar-black-metal anytime. Fans of extreme black metal with a little more to it than "Raaargh, Satan virgin blood" should definitely give it a spin.