Death metal bands, Deadbody and Tribal Gaze, have teamed up for a new split LP, out now via the record labels Closed Casket Activities and Maggot Stomp. The split LP follows Deadbody’s debut full-length, The Requiem, and Tribal Gaze’s sophomore album, The Nine Choirs, both released in 2022. Keep reading to find out more.
Stream/order the album here: https://orcd.co/DBTG
Split releases often offer a chance for bands to step outside their comfort zones and both groups took that opportunity. Deadbody tapped into outside the box influences like King Crimson and Voivod to provide five songs of mind-bending technicality that never skimps on pure heaviness, while Tribal Gaze add a previously unheard groove to the crushing aggression of their three-song contribution. The result is a snapshot of Deadbody and Tribal Gaze at the top of their respective games.
Deadbody’s Taylor Young discussed the split saying, “It’s an honor to share a record with one of my actual favorite current bands. Two sides and flavors of savage riffs and manic drumming that I’m excited for everyone to hear.”
Quintin Stauts of Tribal Gaze added, “We believe this split will find a special place in the hearts of people who like evil shit to headbang to and masterfully chaotic ass beaters. It only made sense for Tribal Gaze to come together with Deadbody to bring that kind of force.”
Deadbody/Tribal Gaze split LP tracklisting:
Deadbody:
01 D.E.A.D.B.O.D.Y.
02 Six Shots Saved
03 Pleonexia
04 Horrors of the Reformed
05 Dead Body II
Tribal Gaze:
01 Let His Servants Starve
02 Burning Garden
03 Twitching On The Cross
Upcoming Deadbody shows:
11/15 Los Angeles, CA @ The Belasco *
11/16 San Diego, CA @ Brick By Brick ^
11/24 Brooklyn, NY @ The Meadows +
* w/ Nails, Xibalba, World Peace, Auditory Anguish
^ w/ Nails, World Peace, Auditory Anguish
+ w/ God’s Hate, Haywire, Scarab, Final Resting Place
More from Deadbody:
Deadbody is a San Fernando Valley death metal, grind, and hardcore band consisting of guitarist and vocalist Taylor Young, bassist and vocalist Colin Young, guitarist Miles McIntosh, and drummer Jorge Herrera. Two years after their bruising debut album, The Requiem, they’re back with another captivating barrage: a split LP with the Texas death metallers Tribal Gaze.
Deadbody formed in 2020, and all its members cut their teeth in well-regarded aggressive bands. Together, brothers Taylor and Colin Young hail from Twitching Tongues and God’s Hate. McIntosh previously played in Apparition and Harness; Herrera, previously in Despise You, currently performs in ACXDC, and live in Infest. And Taylor Young is revered across the heavy music spectrum for his production and engineering acumen.
As Young explains, these five songs originated from The Requiem’s writing process. “They were too crazy, and they didn’t really fit,” Young says, noting outré influences from King Crimson to Voivod. “We just tried to turn it up a notch from the last record, and just write some sh*t that people aren’t really doing.” He pondered building a new LP around them — but then Tribal Gaze came along. The two bands go back; Young mixed their second LP, 2022’s The Nine Choirs. “The Tribal Gaze songs are incredible,” Young says, noting that everything fell together rapidly and organically. “The two bands are a good fit.”
Recorded by Young at The Foo Fighters‘ Studio 606, the Deadbody half of the split wastes no time in snapping necks. Starting with the seven-second opening shot of “D.E.A.D.B.O.D.Y.” the EP hurtles into the whiplash-inducing “Six Shots Saved.” “Pleonexia” explores the theme of “our country’s cycle of money,” where the electorate votes to line their pockets but gets robbed anyway. “Horrors of the Reformed” is a withering condemnation of hypocritical, self-righteous organized religion. “It’s jarring,” Young says of the music. “There are three separate things happening.” And it all comes to a head with “Dead Body II,” which investigates the “torture cycle” of governmental bureaucracy, in finding a place to put down roots.
All in all, the mission of the band, and this new split, is simple. “All I care about is people enjoying some ripping aggressive music,” Young says. “If they vibe with the themes, that’s great too.”
More from Tribal Gaze:
Tribal Gaze is a Longview, Texas-based death metal band consisting of vocalist McKenna Holland, guitarists Quintin Stauts and Ian Kilmer, bassist Zachary Denton, and drummer Cesar De Los Santos. Two years after their last album, the heavier-than-heavy The Nine Choirs, they’re back with another merciless offering: a split LP with the San Fernando Valley death metal, grind, and hardcore band Deadbody.
Holland, Kilmer, Denton, and Stauts formed Tribal Gaze in 2020, and released their debut EP, Godless Voyage, in 2021. While that release featured programmed drums, Cesar De Los Santos joined as their drummer that year. With The Nine Choirs, their prominent place in the Texas aggressive music landscape was cemented.
Tribal Gaze intended their side of this split to diverge significantly from their work past and future. “We wanted it to be a standalone thing,” Stauts says. “So, we experimented with making things a little less chunky, with more groove to them.” This, he says, is a subtle nod to his favorite split of all time: Mammoth Grinder and Hatred Surge, from 2011. “I was inspired by the way they paced everything,” he says, “where it was a little different from The Nine Choirs, and different from the album that’s coming up next.”
The opener, “Let His Servants Starve,” harkens back to Tribal Gaze’s core aesthetic: mid-paced, headbang-inciting. The lyrics refer to the fabled temptation of Christ by Satan: “What if all the temptations were exactly what he wanted?” Stauts says. “Instead of telling him to be gone, he became swollen with jealousy, and the temptations took him over?”
For “Burning Garden,” Stauts sought to be less reliant on heavy chugging, and more focused on flow. “I wanted the solos to be kind of weird,” he says. “I tried to not do the standard harmonic style solos.” Again, the lyrics subvert the Bible: “What if something intercepted the Garden of Eden before it prospered and spawned humankind?” he asks. “What if it saw what humans were going to do, and cut them off at the roots?”
To Stauts, the third and final song on Tribal Gaze’s side, “Twitching on the Cross,” is “self-explanatory.” “I watched The Passion of the Christ not long ago,” he reveals. “No matter if you’re religious or not, it’s a hard movie to watch. I just put myself in the position of someone who could weaponize Jesus… being put through the punishment that he did, almost in a mocking way.”
“We didn’t have any songs that were [sufficiently] in your face, that made you uncomfortable,” Stauts explains. But all three songs will: full stop.
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Follow Tribal Gaze:
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