Album Review: Mother of All Battles

Latest release from Tribe After Tribe a disappointment

By: Brad York / Staff Reporter

Posted: 10/3/08

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

Tribe After Tribe is a South African alternative rock band that delivers a musical blow that begs you to stand up and change the world.

"M.O.A.B. (Mother of All Battles): Stories of Deuteronomy," due out Oct. 14, is the band's sixth album and features a wave of sound that can be compared to Tool with songs containing typical rock instruments and worldly instruments as well.

Most of "M.O.A.B." contains a dark ambient underlying tone that brings a powerfully praising stylistic feel from song to song.

It is easy to hear the Led Zeppelin-influenced guitars and Perry Farrell, lead vocalist of Jane's Addiction, styled vocals on tracks such as "Holy City Warrior" and "Supreme One."

Intertwined within the tracks are Bible verses taken from the Book of Deuteronomy. This slows down the pace of the album substantially and ultimately has no place on the album. Robbi Robb, lead vocalist of Tribe After Tribe, seems to be trying to hard to preach instead of simply singing.

"Put down the guns, put down the books, put away the pointing fingers of blame...Come away from the temples and into the fields, and there let us work together to eradicate disease and poverty from the face of the Earth. This is the 'Mother Of All Battles,'" said Robb, regarding the album.

If that isn't preaching, then I don't know what is.

Robb makes it sound that you should undergo a life-changing event by listening to "M.O.A.B.," but instead the album leaves you unfulfilled and unsatisfied.

This album sounds like a generic version of all the leading alternative hard rock bands. "M.O.A.B." is simply an album that leaves you asking, "When does the next Tool album come out?"