Tribulation - The Horror

Written by Philip

Sunday, 23 August 2009 08:02

Pulverised Records

2009 has been a relatively good year for metal, I'd say. Tribulation's debut album The Horror is another example of this. They play a blend of old school thrash and death metal, and deliver it fast and direct. The fact that they hail from Sweden could come as a surprise, as they don't play the traditional style of Swedish death, rather opting for this more volatile concoction. Guitar solos are prominent, and headbanging-inducing thrash-infused death metal fellates your eardrums in a dark and bloody dungeon paradise.

Stylistically and dynamically, there's not a ton going on. It's nothing complicated or intricate. It's merely heavy as hell, fast as fuck, and violent as shit. The album barely runs over half an hour, but that's all the time you need. Were it to run much longer, you may be liable to be compensated for damages from Pulverised Records due to whiplash-related injuries as a result of headbanging too long. This album is a riff spectacle, a dazzle display of what makes men men, and what makes metal so fucking destructive. There's no lollygagging or time wasting. Almost every second is utilized to achieve maximum delivery of pulverisation.

The production is muddy enough to give The Horror the feel of 90's death metal, neglecting anything too modern sounding. Yet, the guitars are thick and chunky like a good soup of human meats. Vocals are standard death/thrash, ugly and harsh. The title of the album must surely come from the brief intros and interludes scattered through the album of eerie keyboards, which add little to the whole package, but make for nice mood-setting bonuses.

All of the songs sound rather similar and while I won't call them formulaic, the band doesn't explore many different paths or options for creative songwriting. That's fine. The result can be that one may feel as if he or she is listening to the same few songs repeated over and over again. It can have a hypnotizing effect, which is present in a lot of extreme metal when songwriting and dynamics are put in the back seat (or into the trunk, often times) while the extremity is the only focus of the music. Hey, who the fuck doesn't love extremity? Has that not been one of the cornerstones of metal since the early 80's? There are some minor tempo changes on this record, but I would not say that constitutes a real dynamic range. That's about as far as they go when it comes to incorporating dynamics into their sound. But what the fuck? Who cares? It's mad thrashing death metal that drops cluster bombs all over the city. When each of the songs are FUCKING MONSTERS, who cares when they all sound the same? One could never say that this album isn't totally consistent through out its 32 minutes of chaos.

1. Into the Jaws of Hell 0:17
2. Crypt of Thanatophilia 3:57
3. Curse of Resurrection 3:39
4. Beyond the Horror 3:53
5. The Vampyre 2:57
6. Sacrilegious Darkness 3:32
7. Spawn of the Jackal 4:40
8. Seduced By the Smell of Rotten Flesh 4:47
9. Graveyard Ghouls 5:00

8.7/10

Last Updated on Tuesday, 25 August 2009 05:20