Standing out in a festival line-up as large as Bloodstock is a huge feat, but something Tribe Of Ghosts managed this year, their set one of the most talked about events, praised by those who witnessed it and spoken about by those who now pretend they were there.
Tribe Of Ghosts – The Six Six Bar, Cambridge – 6 November 2022
Words: Paul Monkhouse
Photography: The Six Six
Only their fifth show, the Brighton four-piece took the New Blood stage by the scruff of the neck and both seduced and battered the curious crowd into submission. Almost impossible to categorise, their twisted modern take on Metal is a multi-faceted wonder, and it’s on a wave of euphoria that the quartet find themselves doing their first headline set at a festival some scant months later.
It had been a long day already by the time Tribe Of Ghosts hit the stage at The Six Six Bar for the first Metal festival to be held at the recently revived venue, formerly The Boat Race pub. Nevertheless, an engaged and revved-up audience greeted the band like homecoming heroes when they strode onto the stage, kicking straight into the brief and brutal musical maelstrom of City.
Quickly segueing into the big crunch of Hive, there was a dazzling array of sounds pouring forth, the twin vocals of singer Beccy Blaker and guitarist/singer Adam Sedgwick a heady mix of light and shade. With devastating spirals that switch from horror to beauty and back again in a heartbeat, the song is a prime example of what they do so well. This blend of sweet and vicious thrills as well as fascinates.
With the hypnotic pattern laid down by Ben Kitching’s bass and the drums of Danny Yates, Reign starts gently, its haunting rhythm ebbs and flows like the sea before things explode, the guitar scything across everything, and the earth-shaking grind threatens to tear the place apart. Float Down also fries the synapses, Blaker’s bright, almost pop tones dancing across the apocalypse as Sedgwick howls like a million lost souls, the musical fire raining down in torrents of molten Metal.
There’s a touch of Industrial Metal about Cold, the seesawing attack having stark brutality. The drums and bass are tightly military, Blaker floating above everything in an otherworldly dream, the crushing force coming in and decimating all in its path.
The set comes to an all too swift conclusion with the blistering power of False Gods and A Lesson Learned In Silence. A devastatingly heavyweight one/two punch with all the drama you could wish for, every human feeling stretched and strained, ears ringing, pulses racing and jaws well and truly dropped.
Intense, emotional, overwhelming and ultimately uplifting, Tribe Of Ghosts are the future of intelligent, glorious and shattering Metal.
