The Return

Black Tribe has put out some really interesting, varied material over the years, although unfortunately not at an entirely consistant pace, as is demonstrated on The Return. This demo is essentially what it says on the tin, Mr. Gill's return to playing black metal after being out of the game for a short while, and apparently the idea behind this was to put out some generic Darkthrone worship as a sort of warm up, to stretch his black metal muscles ready to deliver later on (which he undoubtably does). The album sort of comes across as more of an odds and sods compilation, bits and bobs from here and there that Gill wrote, sewn together to exercise himself musically a little. As a result, this turns out to actually be much more varied than your average Darkthrone worship, although that doesn't necessarily make it better.

The demo starts off fairly decently. 'Dawn' starts off in an ambient manner, very similiar to Daudi Baldrs, before turning into some fairly average black metal, about as average as can be, really. Fierce Hatred is similiar, although slightly better. The sound isn't as fierce as you'd expect, the guitar tone in particular is almost ambientesque in nature. Still, pretty decent. Riffwise it's pretty similiar to Funeral Moon/Transilvanian Hunger era Darkthrone. From the Depth of Hell is actually an excellent song which was resurrected on a later Black Tribe recording, and I actually like it a lot. It's very minimal, not only sonically but technically aswell, the riffwork barely moving at all, excluding the power chords in the follow-up riffs, the main part sounds like the melody is comprised entirely of string-bending. I don't know, maybe that's just my poor musical translating. Very good song though, not as good as it's later incarnation but still good, maybe my favourite Black Tribe song. Very Transilvanian Hunger.

Cryptesthesis is less impressive. To me, this just sounds like a complete aping of Ea, Lord of the Depths, and although their's nothing wrong with borrowing the idea for a riff, when it's a song so good I can't help but draw parallels, and without the freaky drum beat and other riffs that should compliment the main one, this song sort of fails. The whole composition and construction feels sort of awkard. It's not extremely terrible, but I could do without it. 'The Return' is another pretty good Darkthrone-inspired number, generic but competent. I like it, especially the riff when the drums slow down, but it's not very memorable. 'Maelstrom' is a very Death In June inspired instrumental, and I like it a lot. It sort of reminds me Lord Wind's 'War Song', not because it rips it off but just because it haves a similiar mood. I like it.

The Last Infernal Sunrise is from the 'War' demo, yet I don't recognise it in the slightest, mainly because the 'War' demo was pure infernal distorted noise with a few inklings of civilised music. It's much better than this one, which is actually pretty bland, probably the blandest song here. Then we have a Darkthrone cover, which fits in right at home with everything here, and if one didn't know better then they would probably believe it to be just another Black Tribe original. Pretty well done, although it's pretty similiar to the Darkthrone version. We finish with what could well be my favourite track, a remix of the introduction 'Dawn' (the ambient part) mixed in an Alpha Drone style (Gill's strange yet perplexing folk/ambient/ethereal side-project). Eerie yet reflective keys, some nice acoustic guitar strummings, some well sung 'Of the Wand and the Moon' style chantings, epic war drums and some strange noise sections here and there too. A beautiful composition, worth at least a 90 on it's own.

We finish with the 'War' demo in it's entirety, which is an excellent infernal piece of black metal history. Since I sort of see these as bonus tracks (as well as everything after 'Maelstrom', really) I won't include them in the overall score, as it's probably easier aquiring the 'War' tracks seperately anyway, not mentioning the fact that they make much more sense on their own than tagged onto the end of this odd little demo. So overall, this little piece of varied yet still generic but overall enjoyable Darkthrone worship is still a worthy demo in the Black Tribe series, and definately worth owning. Recommended infact, just don't let this put you off other Black Tribe recordings as it's barely comparable with what came before and what was to come.