Music / Twin Tribes

L-R: Luis Navarro, Joel Niño Jr.

Influences:

• The Cure, Depeche Mode, She Past Away, Lebanon Hanover, Drab Majesty, Choir Boy, Second Still, Asylum Party and many more.

Twin Tribes is a Dark Wave / Post-Punk duo based in Brownsville, Texas, formed by Luis Navarro and Joel Niño Jr, who both hailed from Mexico before moving to the US. Their tagline to describe them is: "Dark melodic sounds, synthesizers, lyrics about the undead, the occult and parallel universes."

The two already had previous band experience together when, in 2017, Luis showed Joel his demos for what would become their first album, Shadows, which released in early 2018. The following year was eventful for the band as they started going on multiple tours, while also releasing 3 singles to lead up to the launch of their 2nd album, Ceremony, at the end of 2019.

2021 saw the release of Altars, a Remix Album of songs from their previous two albums (and 2018 single "Still in Still"). The 2024 album Pendulum was teased a few months prior to its release with "Monolith" ^note (the first time a music video came before the release of the album it's from) and "Cauldron of Thorns". Pendulum features their first fully Spanish track, "Sangre de Oro", a step forward from their occasionally bilingual songs.

Drawing inspiration from '80s alternative music with their own unique twist, Twin Tribes' tracks teem with dark romanticism, with their sound mostly comprised of dark synths, reverberating guitars, haunting vocals, and (occasionally) danceable rhythms despite the somber subject matter. Their introspective lyrics delve into melancholic themes; like loss, love, nostalgia, and duality; as well as more morbid ones; like the aforementioned "undead, the occult", being haunted by the past, and much more.

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Members

• Luis Navarro - vocals, guitar, synth, drum machines
• Joel Niño Jr. - bass, synth, vocals

Discography

Albums

• Shadows (January 31, 2018)
  • "Shadows"
  • "Tower of Glass"
• Ceremony (December 13, 2019)
  • "Heart & Feather"
  • "Fantasmas"
• Altars (February 5, 2021) (Remix Album)
• Pendulum (January 26, 2024)
  • "Monolith"

Singles

• "Still in Still" (2018) ^note Made for the compilation album Wild Tongue, dedicated to sharing the experiences of several musicians about living in Rio Grande Valley.

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Twin Tribes' music contains examples of:

• Bad Black Barf: After being tainted by an inky substance, the protagonist of "Monolith"'s music video shakes over a developing black puddle before looking up with black liquid down her mouth and eyes.
• Bilingual Dialogue: Some of their songs mix Spanish lyrics in their mostly English songs. As they live in a border town where speaking in two languages is common, they find adding bilingual lyrics makes it easier for others to connect with their music. This would eventually lead to their first fully Spanish song, titled "Sangre de Ono" ^note (which means "Golden Blood", the name of which is inspired by bizarre sacrifices from Aztec history).
  • The chorus of "Fantasmas" has the repeated phrase "Solo miro fantasmas, Están dentro de ti," which means "I only see ghosts, they're inside of you".
  • "Monolith" has this Spanish chorus, "Me envenena, Te envenena," which means "It poisons me, it poisons you."
• Black Eyes of Evil: The "Monolith" music video has the protagonist get corrupted by a monolith. At a certain point, the Ominous Obsidian Ooze that possesses her body comes out of her eyes. Luiz and Joel are also seen in fully black eyes with black streams down their faces, appearing to accompany the monolith that has come to reclaim her.
• Contrast Montage: In "Monolith", a woman in a white dress is corrupted by Ominous Obsidian Ooze, tainting the room she's in. A contrasting view reintroduces the same room and lady in white as untainted, with pink lighting and petals on the floor, and she looks much happier. The scene alternates between the inky lady thrashing in agony and her smiling counterpart dancing gracefully, with the musical duo and the titular monolith appearing in either view as either clean and smiling (in the brighter view) or tainted with ink (in the darker view).
• The Corruption: In "Monolith," a lady gets scared after touching a monolith and runs into a white room. An inky substance begins to take over her body, causing her to erratically convulse and stain her white dress and the room. She hacks up a black puddle and gains Black Eyes of Evil, which Luis and Joel appear to have as well. Contributing to this interpretation is the chorus line meaning "It poisons me, it poisons you."
• Dark and Troubled Past: The titular "ghosts" of "Fantasmas" are not literal. Luis Navarros explains that Mexican culture has the saying "Ver fantasmas", which literally translates to "see ghosts", but is a metaphor for seeing someone's dark past. The chorus translates to "I see ghosts, they're inside of you."
• Deliberate VHS Quality: Likely since they're a modern-day gothic band taking inspiration from '80s style music, some videos emulate that of VHS videos.
  • The music video for "Tower of Glass" is of a glitchy VHS quality with a red filter.
  • The video for this Goth for Sanctuaries live performance is in a VHS filter and in black and white.
• Duality Motif:
  • The album Pendulum was named with duality as a core theme, as how a pendulum goes back and forth like the rhythmic swaying of tides between two polarising facets that always coexist.
    "Just like tides, all things rise and fall, the pendulum swings equally from right to left, and there is no light without dark."
  • The Monolith in the cover art for "Monolith" is black on one half and white on the other. The music video displays the duality in a different way - a Contrast Montage depicts a dark world where the monolith is inky, and a lighter world where the monolith is glowing white.
• Dysfunctional Family: Implied. The house in "Fantasmas" appears to host a miserable family, with each member alone in their dim respective rooms, absorbed in their own distractions to their own detriment. The man in the house plays games until he goes on a rage that trashes his room, an older woman smiles only for a moment with a birthday cake, a child lazes in front of a TV that only shows static, a young lady appears to be consoling herself in the bath, and a woman clad in fancy red clothes walks past every room before reaching her own, where she gazes upon her wall of wigs before tearing them all down.
• Face-Revealing Turn: The lady in the bathtub from the "Fantasmas" music video has her bare back to the viewer up until the very end, where she slowly turns her head to reveal that she's wearing makeup.
• Flaming Meteor: "Monolith" begins its music video in space when a firey meteor is aimed for Earth. In its place where it crashes stands The Monolith that the song is named after.
• Flipping the Table: The man of the house in the "Fantasmas" music video angrily knocks over his table of playing cards before trashing his room in a rampage.
• Goth: A given since they're a Dark Wave duo whose sound is influenced from the dark '80s with lyrics pertaining to "the undead, the occult and parallel universes," from their own description. They constantly look the part too, often donning black gear and makeup on paled faces.
• Hands Looking Wrong: In the "Monolith" music video, a woman undergoes a transformation after touching a monolith. She notices Ominous Obsidian Ooze drip from her fingers before shaking violently as it spreads across her body. In a contrastingly pure scene that depicts her and the room to be untainted and more serene, the P.O.V. Cam has her gaze upon her clean hands, with petals scattered across the floor.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: "Temperance" starts off with the cosmic contemplation of how small our planet is compared to the whole universe.
  A speck of dust in the universe
  A celestial drop of blood
  How vain it is to think
  Alone, we are the sun
• Ironic Birthday: Implied in the music video of "Fantasmas", where a Dysfunctional Family house has one room for a gloomy middle-aged lady and her cake with lit candles. Holding it makes her smile for a while, but after she has blown out the candles and started eating it, she's sad again.
  The candles burned out the light
• Match Cut: The Contrast Montage in "Monolith" swaps between a lady in white succumbing to The Corruption and a different view of the same lady that is much more serene. As the untainted lady looks over her shoulder with curiosity, the inky lady is doing the same - but fearful instead.
• The Monolith: The cover art for "Monolith" is of the titular vertical slab of stone. It appears as the instigator of The Corruption that comes from outer space in the music video. The 2nd time the corrupted heroine touches it, she disappears.
• Not Afraid to Die: "Another Life" is about accepting the inevitability of death, and having hope in the certainty of meeting again in the afterlife.
  Bound by the moment of a crossing that sent you away
  Countless thoughts descending slowly into a ravine
  But you hope, it's a sign, of a plan we're not meant to decide (x2)
• Ominous Obsidian Ooze: The lady in "Monolith"'s music video has black goo spill from and spread across her body after touching a monolith that fell from the sky. She stains the white room and dress, and the ooze also forms as Bad Black Barf and Black Eyes of Evil. Then the inky monolith reappears in the room and sucks her in.
• Remix Album: Altars contains other artists' remixes of their own songs from their preceding albums, Shadows and Ceremony. There's also a remix of their single "Still in Still".

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