Describing the sound of UK band Tribazik is easy, early Killing Joke meets Pendulum with healthy doses of the raw power of Pitchshifter, the fiery electro snarl of The Prodigy, and the rhythmic swagger of seventies band Red Beat, except as is loudly evident on new album Data Warfare, it is only part of the scintillating recipe. Forging something unique and irrepressibly contagious through the merging and rigorous gene altering of alternative rock, psychedelic metal, industrial, techno and much more, the London based trio rampage through the imagination like a sonic tornado, organic electro and rhythmic teasing entwined with hungry rapacious grooves and psyche igniting invention. It is a glorious pulsating confrontation which has already brought the band eager and potent attention though you suspect that will be nothing in comparison to the acclaim once the album reaches out and out.
The band is the brainchild of Jerry Kandiah (vocals/guitar) and Hedge Seel (drums/samples), two musicians with a rich experience in metal based bands and having their own sound system on the underground rave scene. Linking up the pair explored styles which lit their own passions with a new and boundary pushing invention, the first results including the track Yang To Yin which caught the attention of Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven. His invitation to support his band led to two European tours alongside Killing Joke and Jaz Coleman guesting on a track from Tribazik’s Andy Gill (Gang of Four) mixed debut album All Blood is Red in 2009. Following its acclaimed release the band was then permanently joined by Syan whose previous band Interlock had released the critically acclaimed album Crisis//reinvention in 2004. The recording of the new album was hit by the death of the band’s manager Gary DS but such the force and energy to the breath-taking tempest you can only feel they used the loss to drive their creativity and passion in tribute to the man. Self-produced and mixed by Youth (Killing Joke, The Orb, The Verve), Data Warfare is a sumptuous kaleidoscope of sound and imagination, an inventive fury which transports the listener into lyrical skirmishes looking at ‘the imminent hostilities facing the human race’, and broiling sonic soundscapes woven with aggressively stirring imagination and voracious creative energy.
A cyber enticement starts things off as Too Dead To Care emerges from an electronic cocoon to incinerate the air with a 
furnace of sound and riffs before settling into a deliciously agitated yet perfectly poised enveloping of the ears. Immediately that Killing Joke and Pitchshifter reference coaxes thoughts as electro driven rhythms and pulsating energy fuses with the ravenous guitars. It is a senses dominating introduction to the album, one bold in its invention and unafraid in its dramatic and persistently evolving provocation.
The intense and breath-taking start has lips of anticipation being licked and soon satisfied as Atom soon followed by Life Force Energy parade their ingenious contagion. The first of the two flirts with and peels away the surface of the senses with a skittish almost acidic electro irritant whilst behind riffs and rhythms carve out a formidable and incendiary canvas for the vocals of Kandiah to paint the lyrical narrative. His tones are very Jaz Coleman like across the whole release which only accentuates that Killing Joke resemblance, but never to the detriment of the adventure and distinctive Tribazik presence. The second of the pair from another subdued but sinister intro erupts into a blood pumping and exhaustive consumption of the senses, riffs growling with every heavy note and the beats of Seel reinforcing the tantalising damage with sharp and incisive animosity. As now expected it is just one facet of the enterprise escorting the emotions into a near rapture, melodic swarms and thought provoking craft washing and twisting around the uncompromising pulse and heart of the track.
Without allowing the listener a breath unless they use the pause button, Tribazik keep the riveting creative pressure on with 12th Disclosure and Sonar Sumeria, the first a sonic bred incident filled experiment wailing with aural warning signs, caustic sirens, and perilous intimidation all filtered through a dangerously magnetic swamp of techno radiance and industrial predation. It is a masterful seduction taken to even greater heights by Sonar Sumeria, a celestial journey through rave spawned, psychedelic coloured, sonic romance. Throughout a vociferous energy equally brews up resulting in a sultry and elegant evocation which Pendulum would have loved to have sculpted.
The album continues to fire up the passions and greed in an already gluttonous hunger as firstly the restrained but predatory Hacktivism with its unrelenting electro bait and metallic rabidity seduces and abrases the senses. Just as keenly a virulently addictive groove brings slavery to the imagination before the rhythmically toxic Spacetime Collapse takes over laying a wonderfully wanton and irresistible hand on the emotions as spirals of unpredictable transfixing ingenuity expand the already dexterous invention. With an additional dub coating to its expanse reminding at times of Ruts DC, the song provides another pinnacle on the lofty range of the album before the dark and menacing presence of Bloodline Crossbreed infects and magnetises an admittedly ready to drool over anything appetite for the album. Arguably not as colourfully imposing as previous tracks but with an evocative melody enriched ambience merging with the intensive atmosphere it is on the frontline of intriguing, sophisticated alchemy.
That deliberately sculpted and thoughtfully layered turn of the album continues through the final two songs, though no song lacks invigorating intelligence and artful ingenuity in its makeup. The melancholic yet vibrantly rousing Absence Of Proof comes first with female calls lighting the surface of the emotive exploration lyrically and musically whilst the closing Tools Of Mass Creation delivers a world of sonic emprise all of its own, it a resourcefully elegant and vivaciously daring flight of moving imagination. The pair makes a mentally and emotionally mesmeric end to an exceptional encounter; Data Warfare a sensational dawning of Tribazik and their time to take the rock world by storm you suspect and hope.
10/10
RingMaster 21/02/2014
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