Tribes of Caïn – Essence of Fire
This release – the fourth of the band and entirely produced by themselves – has been on the open market for some time a digital and double-vinyl release – so let’s introduce it here:
You’ll definitely don’t think of Switzerland when hearing the term Black Metal – yet there is a tradition of extreme sounds coming from Alpine area (Celtic Frost, Samael etc).
Yet as a reference to what to expect of “Essence of Fire” I’d rather mention Dimmu Borgir, Bathory or early Ulver. Reto Hofstetter (guitars), Inti Sanchez (drums), Wojtek Chochlewicz (vocals) and Matthias Kürsteiner (guitars) lead you into sinister epic sound worlds, usually on brutal blast-beat paveways. And in my opinion they can stand up to the big aforementioned names…
Those guys have indeed put a lot of work into creating a Gesamtkunstwerk (just look a the cover artwork). As guests on the album e.g. Nicolas Winter (Session bass on all songs), David Reitz on Cello and Anna Murphy (Cellar Darling, Ex-Eluveitie) on Hurdy-gurdy. She also mixed Essence of Fire and mastered it with Marco Jencarelli of Soundfarm, Kriens and Anders Hed of AH Productions, Stockholm.
Check out this ear-candy-track “I Am”, below as Lyric Video. I should perhaps also mention those appealing bonus tracks – acoustic and instrumental versions of three album songs, hence definitely value-for-money here.
Which means that Black Metal fans who enjoy the bands mentioned should check out Tribes of Caïn – and maybe it’s a nice idea for a very special X-m… err, I mean midwinter / yule celebration present …
(Streams available on Spotify , Deezer , Apple Music , Tidal , Youtube )
Bandwebsite
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8.5/10