Album Review: Tribes - Wish to Scream
- Written by David Beech
For years now, music press such as the NME have been heralding the arrival of the saviours of rock 'n' roll - the bastions of real music - the preservers of all that is good about guitars. One year it was The Vaccines, this year it was Palma Violets and in 2012 it was Tribes. Unfortunately for the band, their first album Baby wasn't quite the salvation the music press purported it to be; okay so there was a few good songs on it, but it was never going to live up to hype that had enveloped it. Much like the aforementioned bands, it was a case of musical hyperbole, the album was released to reasonable responses and then the band simply...fell off. That is, until now. The second studio album from the band, entitled Wish to Scream is exactly the album that they should have released as their début and as far as the notorious sophomore album goes, Tribes have bloody nailed it.
The album begins with their sensational new single 'Dancehall' which is, thankfully, completely indicative of the tracks to come; an expertly crafted three minutes of nothing but pure Summer. With a chorus that's sure to lodge itself in to your brain and stubbornly refuse to move, 'Dancehall' is not only one of the best album openers of the year thus far, but also one of the best singles.
Cliched it may be, but there's a distinct level of maturity exhibited through the whole of Wish to Scream. Gone are the distinctly British vibes that were attributed to their début, instead we find a sun-soaked plethora of instruments that seem to effortlessly embody the Los Angeles surroundings in which the album was made. Recording Wish to Scream in Sound City Studios may have been a bold step for the band, given the seminal albums that have been produced their in the past, and it may not have the same cultural impact as either Nevermind or Rumours, but even still, there seems to be a bottomless well of talent buried in the depths of Sound City and Tribes have had a bloody good go at milking it dry. Songs such as 'Never Heard of Graceland' or 'Looking for Shangri-La' make extensive use of the legions of instruments at the band's disposal and completely eschew the 'grunge' moniker that was carelessly bestowed upon them after the release of Baby.
Of course, a lot of the songs featured on Wish to Scream are certainly not original. You can hear the influence of a hundred different bands slowly bleeding through. From The Beatles-esque 'It Never Ends' to the Primal Scream feel of 'How the Other Half Live' there's no denying that Tribes wear their influences on their sleeve. However Wish to Scream has had an unreasonable amount of flack from the naysayers. While there is a distinctly Americanised ideal at play on the album, that's certainly no reason to dismiss the record, or indeed the band the way some reviewers have. Tribes have managed to encapsulate and distil a certain 1960s nostalgia with Wish to Scream, each and every one of the 11 tracks featured is an exercise in sun-bleached LA optimism, and while it's a far cry from the bleak, rain-soaked streets of Camden that brought about Baby, it's certainly an album that deserves regular plays over the forthcoming Summer months.
Wish to Scream is out on May 20 and available from amazon and via 