DarkTribe
The Modern Age

French quartet DarkTribe are back with a new album, this time catering to our modern age and judging by the cover of the album it takes on some of the modern problems in our world. It looks exciting. This is the band’s second album following their 2012 debut that was released on another label. That album was a decent power metal album but nothing that really took to the sky due to the rather typical style of it, I wrote back then that I thought that they had potential but needed to evolve into something more of their own than what they were then. Three years of experience and teaming up with well-renowned producer Jacob Hansen might address the issues from the first album.

It is melodic power metal, slightly symphonic, built around the catchiness of choruses and melodies. The production is fairly typical of a Jacob Hansen power metal production; one could argue that it is slightly overproduced and overpolished and that metal does require some rough edges to really work. The sound is very clean and nice, the vocals are really good and the catchiness really comes out well through the songs. The songs that are eleven and the total playing time is little over fifty minutes, something one could argue is a little long playing time of an album of this character, and that wouldn’t be an invalid argument to me. I think it might work though, as the variation over the songs is quite good and could keep the listener interested for the entire duration.

I think anyone have to like good power metal as it is a genre that invites great music, and this is good power metal so I have a hard time seeing that anyone can really dislike this album. The problem though is the one of multitude, there are so many bands in this genre and if you don’t stand out you will be a while of entertainment and then forgotten. This album lacks a bit of depth so what you hear the first time is what you will hear down the line after more times listening as there are no hidden nuances and such things, and it doesn’t really stand out either. But the songs are good and catchy so if you are a fan of the genre you’ll probably find yourself listening to the album many times anyway. But they still have the same problems as before with their music not really standing out in a genre that is really well populated nowadays, this means that their album may be catchy and good but it is only a while of entertainment that you forget when looking for the next interesting musical acquaintance.

The best song on the album to me is the title track that is an enjoyable track, though it doesn’t stand out that much either. Overall I think this is a quite good album and it should appeal to the fans of the genre with its melodies and catchiness, as a reviewer I think there should be a bit more novelty though. Albums that feel the same from the first listen to the last isn’t that interesting in the larger scheme of things. Still, I have enjoyed listening to this album, it is good music when driving and I do drive a lot, there is just that little extra missing for it to be a real hit. So DarkTribe are back and they don’t really do anything different from the first album, it is a good but not great album I think.

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