TRIBULATION — Down Below (review)

TRIBULATION — Down Below album cover Album · 2018 · Gothic Metal Buy this album from MMA partners
3.5/5 ·
UMUR
"Down Below" is the 4th full-length studio album by Swedish metal act Tribulation. The album was released through Century Media Records in January 2018. It´s the successor to "The Children of the Night" from 2015 and features one lineup change as drummer Jakob Ljungberg has been replaced by Oscar Leander. Since forming in 2001 (originally under the Hazard monicker), Tribulation have been through quite the stylistic development, playing aggressive death/thrash metal act on the "Putrid Rebirth (2006)" EP, changing their sound to a more old school death metal oriented one on their debut full-length studio album "The Horror (2009)", and then morphing into a rather adventurous progressive and psychadelic tinged death metal act on their sophomore studio album "The Formulas of Death (2013)". "The Children of the Night (2015)" saw the band once again change course to a slightly more simple and atmospheric (gothic tinged) heavy metal style with raw vocals...

...and maybe a bit surprisingly they´ve pretty much stuck to that style on "Down Below". On the other hand a band have to settle at some point, when they feel they´ve found a musical identity, and that´s probably what has happened with Tribulation on "Down Below".

It´s obvious too why they have opted to release a relatively similar sounding album to "The Children of the Night (2015)", because that release gave them something of an underground breakthrough and once you´ve tasted success, it´s not something you give up easily. Tribulation are also very good at writing music in this style and perform their music with great skill and conviction too, so those who enjoyed "The Children of the Night (2015)", will pretty surely find appeal in "Down Below" too.

"Down Below" features a dark and organic toned sound production which suits the material well. Regarding the 9 tracks on the 46:40 minutes long album most are pretty regular vers/chorus structured compositions, typically with a dark and heavy vers and a slighly more melodic/atmospheric and uplifting/epic chorus (not light though). It´s when the band break free of their formula and do something a bit different (like the closing minutes of "Here Be Dragons"), that they are most interesting though, and upon conclusion "Down Below" does have a tendency to sound a little too safe and predictable. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved though.
Share this review
more

Review Comments

Post a public comment below | Send private message to the reviewer
Please login to post a shout
UMUR wrote:
more than 2 years ago
I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. A simpler rehash of the predecessor to my ears. It´s still pretty good of course.
Nightfly wrote:
more than 2 years ago
Love this album, might even be my album of the year.

Review Index

Member Zone

Username:
Password:
Stay signed in

Metal Subgenres

Artists Alpha-index

MMA TOP 5 Metal ALBUMS

Rating by members, ranked by custom algorithm
Albums with 30 ratings and more
Master of Puppets Thrash Metal
METALLICA
Buy this album from our partners
Paranoid Heavy Metal
BLACK SABBATH
Buy this album from our partners
Moving Pictures Hard Rock
RUSH
Buy this album from our partners
Powerslave NWoBHM
IRON MAIDEN
Buy this album from our partners
Rising Heavy Metal
RAINBOW
Buy this album from our partners

New Metal Artists

New Metal Releases

The Goblin Sessions Heavy Metal
THEM
Buy this album from MMA partners
Tormenta De Arena Metalcore
VORAGO
Buy this album from MMA partners
Infinite Metalcore
FUTURE GHOST
Buy this album from MMA partners
Heretic Melodic Death Metal
SUNCINDER
Buy this album from MMA partners
The Skull Burned Wearing Hell Like A Life Vest As The Night Wept Mathcore
FRONTIERER
Buy this album from MMA partners
More new releases

New Metal Online Videos

Future Ghost - Wolves (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Future Ghost - Nemesis Game (Official Music Video)
FUTURE GHOST
Bosh66· 1 day ago
Harrowed TwentyTenVideo
HARROWED
Bosh66· 3 days ago
Sunmancer - Realms of Dilemma (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
Sunmancer - Lower Cavalier (Official Visualizer)
SUNMANCER
Bosh66· 8 days ago
More videos

New MMA Metal Forum Topics

More in the forums

New Site interactions

More...

Latest Metal News

members-submitted

More in the forums

Social Media

Follow us
Follow us on Twitter Become a Facebook fan RSS Feed