Tribulation continues its ascension.
Created in 2001 under the name of Hazard, it is in 2004 that Johannes Andersson (bass/vocals, ex-Sars, ex-Stench), Adam Zaars (guitar, ex-Enforcer, ex-Sars) and Jonathan Hultén (guitar, ex-Stench) changed their name to take the actual one. Oscar Leander (drums, ex-Deathstars) joins in 2017 after the departure of their previous drummer, and it is during the announcement of Where the Gloom Becomes Sound,, the band’s fifth album on which he plays, that Jonathan steps aside for Joseph Tholl (guitar, ex-Black Trip, ex-Enforcer, ex-Hazard).
If you ever heard or saw the band at least once, you know who they are.This gloomy look with pale face, this Gothic Metal with heady, haunting Prog accents, but so soft in comparison to the Death Metal they played at the beginning, that seduces crowds. This new album sums up everything. A tornado of dissonant leads, exciting psychedelic tones, a surprising but rich contrast, in which everyone can enjoy something. In Remembrance gets the ball rolling, with a long scary introduction, then comes an ice-cold rhythmic. The song plays on a melting of blackness and quietness, while including some leads, and magic happens. Hour Of The Wolf is a more solid but as enchanting song, with some joyful tones, as well as Leviathans. The composition is extremely contrasted, but the band fascinates, obsesses and finally offers us the long-awaiting explosion after a strange sample. The intensity continues on Dirge Of A Dying Soul, a slow and weighing gruesome requiem on which the band adds its own catchy touch, then on the short Lethe, a keyboard interlude. The quartet’s madness comes back with Daughter Of The Djinn, a mystical song on which fastness and mastery meets melancholy, then the energetic Elementals is next. Once again, we are trapped by this storm of dissonant and piercing leads supported by a solid rhythmic, while the band goes back to weighing and gloomy tones for Inanna, driven by those strange leads. Funeral Pyre accelerates again, picking into an unholy energy to feed this mad run before The Wilderness, the last song. The band multipliates dissonant, melancholic tones and this dark energy that animates them for an epic final part.
Tribulation’s art is unique, and the band cultivates it. Where The Gloom Becomes Sound is a surprising album that also stays into the range of what musicians can do, while taking measured risks. Impossible to pass over.
90/100
