EP REVIEW: Tribus – Venomous

Melodic death metal is an interesting beast with a few different strains. There’s what is arguably its original form taken on AT THE GATES’ seminal Slaughter of the Soul and CARCASS’ Heartwork, a style that leans heavily on speed and shredding with often virtuoso guitar playing as exemplified by the sadly-defunct CHILDREN OF BODOM. There’s also the slower, doomier melodeath exemplified by INSOMNIUM and many, many more. Formed in 2012, Brazil’s melodic death metal export VENOMOUS are absolutely in the former camp, with the speedy, shredding style metal has come to know and love. Their first full length, Defiant, arrived in 2018. They closely followed it with another LP (The Black Embrace) in 2019 but were relatively quiet until this year, when they announced their signing to Brutal Records and the upcoming EP Tribus. 

At just four songs and a hair over twenty minutes, Tribus doesn’t mess about and, bar brief piano passages bookending the record, gets straight down to business. Opener Eerie Land begins with the aforementioned piano though it’s almost poppy and is a strange, incongruous opening to the song. Following this it shifts to guitars backed by quiet synths and feels like an entirely different song. It’s immediately followed by Trinity, that uses a brief clean guitar lick and feedback before cascading fills lead into a mid-paced riff. This too, is short-lived and they’re soon rocketing along at a much faster speed, fuelled by rapid-fire riffing and double bass drumming.

The same goes for Unity with its slower, rolling drums at the start that accelerates soon after, though its solo midway through atop acoustic guitar lends more variety to the song, along with its slower conclusion. Duality is perhaps the strongest song on Tribus, with its chugging start that leads into a stomping intro with some searing duelling guitar work. It uses chuggier rhythms well and its stadium-sized chorus is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. 

There’s flashes of more interesting moments such as the duelling leads such as Trinity and the vocals switching between aggressive and sung in Duality’s choruses. That said, this is competent, though unambitious melodic death metal that owes a great debt to luminaries AT THE GATES and genre stalwarts THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER. Tribus is still its own beast, occasionally mixing in Brazilian rhythms (fortunately without falling prey to full-on aping SEPULTURA), and it’s an entertaining listen. It’s let down somewhat by the piano passages that bookend the record. The poppy intro to Eerie Land is out of place and feels shoehorned in for want of a better opening though the closing of Unity fares better and seems to fit the album better; but still feels as if it’s there more as a callback to the opening than contributing anything new.

All that being said, VENOMOUS are a fun listen but don’t really do much that hasn’t been done before – and often done better – by all the aforementioned bands. This is competent, entertaining melodeath that hints at some promise if they can harness the flashes of brilliance on display for future efforts.

Rating: 6/10

Tribus is set for release on February 26th via Brutal Records.

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