ALBUM REVIEW: Tribulation - "Down Below"

By: Daniel Jackson

Album Type:Full Length

Date Released:26/01/2018

Label:Century Media Records

I’ll stop short of calling this Tribulation’s defining masterpiece, if only because the band seem to keep outdoing themselves. For that same reason, it’s hard to imagine the band won’t have even more to show us as the years go by, and that’s a thrilling prospect.

‘Down Below’ CD//DD//LP track listing:

01. The Lament

02. Nightbound

03. Lady Death

04. Subterranea

05. Purgatorio

06. Cries From The Underworld

07. Lacrimosa

08. The World

09. Here Be Dragons

The Review:

By this point, most of you reading this are going to be familiar with the transformation Tribulationhas undergone over the last decade or so. Beginning as a more traditional, yet unique and creative Swedish death metal band, and over time moving further and further into a lush, blackened goth metal kind of sound. That’s not exactly a common trajectory for a band, but then Tribulation isn’t a common band.

While I’m sure there are still people holding out hope for something closer to ‘The Horror’ or ‘The Formulas of Death’, 2015’s ‘The Children of the Night’ was a definitive clean break from the thrashy, progressive death metal of the band’s early years. The glowing reception with which the album was received by both critics and a large number of new and current fans of the band probably wouldn’t have dissuaded them from continuing on their current course.

All of that is to say that ‘Down Below’ is a further exploration of the sound Tribulation established with ‘Children of the Night’, leaning into the accessible nature of their previous album and further toying with the subjective boundaries each of us set as to what counts as metal vs. hard rock. In that sense a good comparison point might be a band like Ghost, even if the two are pretty different, stylistically. This correlation is particularly evident on “Subterranea”, with its subtle inclusion of classic heavy metal elements in the verse, and the theatrical nature of the song’s opening moments.

Tribulation’s current modus operandi is straddling the fence between commercial accessibility and the underground’s love of artistic indulgence and morose aesthetics. Johannes Andersson’s vocals—as decipherable as they may be—are still very much in a black metal vein, and will continue to limit the pace at which they can grow their fanbase. Looking at them purely as an artistic choice, it works for me, but I love vocals in that style to begin with. But it also means their ceiling will remain at a certain level.

Instrumentally and compositionally, it’s clear as day that the band is continuing to appeal to a larger audience, but Andersson’s vocals keep them tethered to their point of origin, and interviews the band has done in the past indicate that it’s a conscious choice. It’s a part of their identity that they value more than whatever potential growth might come from making a vocal change as drastic as their musical changes have been. The vocal situation illustrates that Tribulationis remarkably comfortable with who they are. Sure they could probably bring in a singer like Pelle Åhman (who I’ve been advocating for on twitter for a couple of years now), but then it wouldn’t bethem. The songs are immediately catchy, the vocals are caustic and grim. That’s who Tribulation are.

Time has a funny way of proving statements like this next one wrong, but in this moment, ‘Down Below’ feels like an improved and stronger version of the vision they brought to life on ‘The Children of the Night’. This album is a refinement rather than another great leap forward, and I think that’s exactly what was needed. ‘The Children of the Night’ had the benefit of leaving an immediate impression because it was so different, and time has not been as kind to parts of that album because, in retrospect, the whole experience would have been much better served at forty minutes than at fifty-six. ‘Down Below’ is more concise, and the songs here are better realized and written, outside of the previous album’s opening pair of songs. I’ll stop short of calling this Tribulation’s defining masterpiece, if only because the band seem to keep outdoing themselves. For that same reason, it’s hard to imagine the band won’t have even more to show us as the years go by, and that’s a thrilling prospect.

‘Down Below’ is available a digitally here and on CD/LP here.

Band info: Official Site|| Facebook