Tribes - Baby

Das Jahr ist noch nicht besonders alt und schon beginnt der NME die ersten neuen Bands zu hypen. In der aktuellen Ausgabe des Magazins sind es gleich deren zwei.

Tribes sind ein Quartett aus Camden und so stehen sie in ihrem ersten Video zu "We Were Children" (das klingt, als coverten Suede "Where Is My Mind?") auch gleich auf einem Hausdach in London, geben ein Konzert und lassen sich dabei filmen. Diese Idee ist nicht neu, ihre Musik auch nicht.

TribesHD We Were Children from Mickey Voak on Vimeo.

Auf "Baby", dem bereits zwei EPs und zwei Singles vorausgingen, präsentieren Johnny Lloyd (Gesang, Gitarre), Dan White (Gitarre), Jim Cratchley (Bass) und Miguel Demelo (Drums) einen Mix aus klassischem Britpop (Razorlight, The Libertines, Suede, Manic Street Preachers), Glam Rock (T Rex, Mott The Hoople) und Grunge (Pixies, Nirvana).

Verbesserungspotential besteht definitiv hinsichtlich Plattentitel, -cover und Styling, jedoch ist die Musik der Tribes deutlich besser als es das Äußere vermuten lässt.

Tribes Sappho from Mickey Voak on Vimeo.

Dem NME ist das Debütalbum von Tribes 9 Punkte wert:

Grime versus glam. Grunge against gloss. A perfect ‘Aladdin Sane’ flashbolt smeared with grisly Pixies gore. Pulp’s shiniest synth hits dipped in diesel. Dissect Tribes’ filthy/sweet dichotomy – that delicious clash of bright melody and dank garage noise – whichever way you like, it’s as ravishing as a pack of supermodel she-wolves. (...)

f anything Tribes try to out-grunge Pixies, which is why the anthemic ‘We Were Children’ feels like being sucked into a supermassive black hole at the centre of ‘Where Is My Mind?’. But the archaic Yankisms are offset by Johnny Lloyd’s Ziggy Stardust bawl and the scarf-rocking refrain of “We were children in the mid-’90s”, an era so synonymous with Britpop, lad culture, ‘Three Lions’ and lagery nationalism that the gravelly choir chanting the chorus drenches the song in all the glory and grace of This Is England ’94. Even though, for Tribes at the time, it was less ‘Cigarettes & Alcohol’, more Scalextric and Calpol.

Yet just there is the other dichotomy that adds depth and dynamic to ‘Baby’. Tribes are not just filth versus flash, they’re innocence versus experience. A reflective Killers epic such as ‘Corner Of An English Field’, with its suggestions of a lonely war vet reminiscing over his carefree youth, rubs up against the fleeting teenage kicks of ‘Halfway Home’. A luscious ‘Starman’ lullaby to a broken drunk driving to oblivion through a godless universe, ‘Nightdriving’, gives way to the brilliantly vivacious ‘When My Day Comes’, a gleeful gawp at The Future that is essentially a rampaging street gang made up of Bowie, The Jam, The Boo Radleys, ‘River Euphrates’, The Undertones and ‘When You Were Young’.

It’s about making the familiar sound fresh, the weary wonderful. Tribes peer out at Britain – its lawless youth and its hopeless adulthoods – and rouse it to former glories. Not least with its newer, more ponderous tracks. A spectacular pop tune named after an ancient Greek poet about a mum absconding from her family for a new life of labial adventure was always going to be the lynchpin of ‘Baby’, but even ‘Sappho’ is over-shadowed by the stratospheric Black Mountain stomp and bluster of ‘Himalaya’, the Beatledelic ballad ‘Bad Apple’ or the psych-country wonder ‘Alone Or With Friends’, a carnival funeral march in which the hearse lifts off like halfway through Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

It’s this added meat and might that makes ‘Baby’ not only an early contender for album of 2012 but a formidable salvo in the guitar rock fightback, packing the power punch of prime Oasis, the pop preen of peak Suede and the sweet serrations of ‘Surfer Rosa’. Congratulations, Tribes, it’s a monster.

Und eine ausführliche Song-by-Song -Vorstellung gibt es obendrein.

TribesHD When My Day Comes from Mickey Voak on Vimeo.

Tribes spielen am 01. März 2012 ihr einziges Deutschlandkonzert in Berlin (Privat Club).