Tribulation - Down Below

Sounds we hear always paint a picture on our minds, music paints either the sun or the moon atop that landscape art. An album to me is an uncharted land waiting to be explored and whenever I walk through them it's either day or night. An album is not just a collection of songs the artist happened to write and record during the course of few months but an amalgamation of influences, personal reflections, artistic vision and evolution the band would like to project. They project these with their music, lyrics, album art, liner notes, band photos, music videos and even with their live shows. The records that you hear therefore caress more senses than the sense of hearing. Yours truly here therefore classify albums as "day albums" and "night albums".  

Day albums are the ones that sounds warm and lively, all the sludge, stoner, groove and trash metal albums fall into this category. The death metal bands having oriental influence like Behemoth and Nile conjures images of Arabian desserts and Egyptian gods, hence all of their albums are day albums. Songs of war, glory and majesty are day for those happen under the sun and that's how Amon Amrath, Bolt Thrower and Manowar got their albums tagged under day. Night albums on the other hand are cold and a bit achromic, most black metal albums fall into this and so does the Goth influenced. The "grim and evil" side of heavy metal are forever nocturnal and they always dwell under the light that never warms. It also helps when the band makes it clear with their album titles and artworks like the albums Nocturnal and Nightbringers by The Black Dahlia Murder or In the Nightside Eclipse by Emperor.       

Down Below by the Swedish band Tribulation is the quintessential night album. The band has been toying with the idea of night and its beings since moving away from their Swedish death metal roots to a more Gothic influenced in the album The Children of the Night. Three years later the idea becomes fully realized in the band's fourth record which almost sounds like The Cure playing death metal and that my friends is a compliment.

The Gothic subculture has its passionate romance, the ever present melancholy and the fetish towards the color black but Down Below is very much a death metal album. If it was just death metal then there is nothing new to hear or worthy to write about. It is all made clear in the second song Nightbound if you put the lyric in a different context.

"I remember, I remember who we are 

and the long night comes with grace" 

Yes the riffs do come with grace and every lick every note here is a thing of beauty and yes they do remember their death metal.

The album opens with The Lament, starting with moody clean guitars before going late 70s heavy metal with the riffing. However it's when we reach the chorus that we meet the band's cynosure. Adam Zaars and Jonathan Hultén writes truly infectious leads, when Johannes Andersson screams "Would we see you if you came to us?" it is the chorus lead riff that hooks you. The song Lady Death too spots a chorus lead that the band develops into a guitar solo and the same riff is used as a motif throughout the song.

Lacrimosa is Down Below at its heaviest with its double bass rolls and a more menacing tone with the guitar riffs and leads. It even features Gregorian chants and church bells in the middle giving the song a spooky Ghost vibe. The song ends with some cold piano notes and with it on a melancholic note. Pianos and syths comes in and out in the ominous sounding Cries from the Underworld, the song features a Pink Floydian  guitar solo at around the 2 minute mark and an ambient breakdown leading to even more Floydian solos.

Johannes Andersson vocals is the only thing that keeps the record in deathy realms, he sounds like a more restrained Mikael Stanne of Dark Tranquility. His bass work is praiseworthy as well, often taking part in the counterpoint with the two guitarist and he even does a bass solo in The Lament. The new drummer Oscar Leander brings an earthy jazzy fell to the songs with creative fills and patterns such as the tom filled drum parts in The World or the swinging beats in the middle of Lacrimosa.

It is hard not to miss the "lady" in the lyrics. Most the songs here refer to a particular women, even the artwork has a lady in it (right below the bird's neck). In The Lament the women is named Sophia

"But we mourn

We mourn the death of Sophia"

Lady Death describes her as "beautiful and severe, graceful yet fierce" and proclaims "In the depths of  your mystic darkness, I must die".  In the flowing song Subterranea, she who is

"Dolorous

Lifeless in her gaze

Blank reflection a memory merged with the haze

Rabid, in fervor"

brings the singer "Down below", "In eternities alone". Finally in the last song the epic Here Be Dragons the narrator warns the listener about her. The phrase "Here be dragons" refers to the old practice of drawing dragons or monsters on the uncharted areas of maps warning whoever that dares to pass through those lands and seas. The narrator "bowed and took her by the hand"  only to realize 

"Here be dragons

Here be death

Here be the sombre that have felt the Devil's breath"

The lady referred here can be literal or metaphorical but this small concept ties the album together and gives credence to the long lost art of hearing the album in one go.

It is really hard to listen to this on a sunny day, Down Below draws a picture of moonlit woods and a distant castle obscured by a shroud of fog. We walk through those twilight shadows and gets enchanted by the visuals the music paints. The albums has a very retro late 70s feel due to its guitar and drum tones, polished enough to highlight the instrumental flair. 

The record was released on January 26th and it took me months to finally write about it. It checks every box of what I like in heavy music, it's progressive, dark and emotionally heavy with some intricate guitar playing that gets better and better with every listen. It is nice to hear a band expanding their sound and incorporating their influences without losing their identity. Of all the bands that released music this year Tribulation's follow up to Down Below is the one I look forward to, we will never know where this evolution is going to take them.                 

Down Below is available for purchase on Century Media Records. 

LINKS FOR YOUR ENLIGHTENMENT

Tribulation   The Cure   Ghost   Pink Floyd

       Dark Tranquility   Gothic Rock