Tiger Army – Music From Regions Beyond

Tiger Army have always been an intense Psychobilly band full of dark lyrics, eerie vocals and a punch of energy to them. On Music From Regions Beyond, the band’s fourth album, they successfully maintain that legacy while at the same time expanding their sound a bit while reaching for new heights making it the band’s most diverse and commercially viable release to date.

Songs like Prelude: Signal Return, Afterworld (featuring some guest vocals from the one and only Davey Havoc) and Spring Forward still maintain that old school Tiger Army vibe – breakneck drumming, the echoey twang of the stand up bass and Nick 13’s eerily airy signature vocals floating above them – but many of the other songs see the band stepping out of their comfort zone a bit. While still maintaining that rockabilly horror punk feel to it, the songs also feature a more commercial, radio friendly gloss to them. Hotprowl is a fed to you at a breakneck speed that would get a pit moving in no time, but threaded throughout it is a combination of “woahs” and vocals akin to AFI before melting into a hardcore breakdown with Brandan Schieppati of Bleeding Through coming in and screaming his lungs out; something that just doesn’t fit the Tiger Army sound.

That’s far from being the only song that sees the band expanding and experimenting though. Forever Fades Away sees them using a quick hi-hat beat as an introduction before merging into a song that would have fit into Decemberunderground and sees a serious lack of that upright bass pulsations. The song is great, but more commercial sounding than what they’ve done in the past. Luckily though, the frenzied upright bass pulsations is the lead into to the following track Ghosts Of Memory making a song that once again screams out Tiger Army.

In a way, that’s what happens throughout the entire album. One song screams at you Tiger Army but then the next is a new side of Tiger Army that we haven’t seen before – which some people will claim it should have stayed that way, while others will accept it with open arms. As The Cold Rain Falls is a dark new wave tune bringing up images of The Cure while Hechizo de Amor is an all Spanish song which, unsurprisingly, features a Spanish flare to it and in turn is one of the weaker songs on the record.

The biggest fault this album has is that it doesn’t continually scream out Tiger Army. The songs alternate from being the band you know and love to being an almost completely new band with a Tiger Armyinfluence in them. The songs are good but at times lack that punch that help put Tiger Army where they are today.