On January 29, Sweden's TRIBULATION will release its new album, "Where the Gloom Becomes Sound", via Metal Blade Records in North America and Century Media Records in the rest of the world. For a first impression of the album, the video for its first single "Leviathans" (produced by Ulf Lundén) can be viewed below.
TRIBULATION checked in with the following comment about "Leviathans": "Your first morsel to the gloom-made soundscape of our new album is something that we conjured up from the cataracts and that comes in the shape of a torrential flood, an oblation to the 'spirits of the sea and of change', to the Leviathans!"
TRIBULATION entered Linus Björklund's Studio Ryssviken in April and exited (informally) nearly two months later. The group — guitarists Adam Zaars and Jonathan Hultén, Johannes Andersson (vocals/bass), and Oscar Leander (drums) — used the first 10 days of their studio time to rehearse. Once the bone-oil had sufficiently run its course, the group and co-producer Jamie Elton started to hammer into the rudiments of the recording process. Elton, who also serves as TRIBULATION's soundman and is a longtime friend, took the reins from Martin Ehrencrona, who helmed the 2018 "Down Below" sessions. Together, they crafted a well-appointed production, one that's luxuriously grim and auricularly inviting. "Where the Gloom Becomes Sound" was then given to Grammy-nominated producer Tom Dalgety (GHOST, RAMMSTEIN) to mix at Psalm Studios. Once the mixing was finished — Dalgety would send over versions from his studio in Wales — TRIBULATION re-enlisted Magnus Lindberg at Redmount Studios in Stockholm to master.
The band's resulting fifth full-length indisputably elevates the Swedes to the highest echelons. The source of their glinting darkness: a yawning, bottomless rift deep within.
"We immersed ourselves in the world of myth and magic," says Zaars. "With a specific focus on elemental magic, and the elements, in general, from both the Western and Indian esoteric traditions, not the Buddhist four elements but the five elements. Myth and magic are obviously not something new in the world of TRIBULATION, but it got a bit more specific on this album. We just present it from a slightly different perspective."
"Where the Gloom Becomes Sound" isn't representative of monumental change, but rather the accrual of ambition over time in conjunction with continued exposure to and profound experiments with crossroads devilry. Being their most expressive and inventive album to-date, where it will take them is only to greatness and with reverence.
"Where The Gloom Becomes Sound" track listing
01. In Remembrance
02. Hour Of The Wolf
03. Leviathans
04. Dirge Of A Dying Soul
05. Lethe
06. Daughter Of The Djinn
07. Elementals
08. Inanna
09. Funeral Pyre
10. The Wilderness
Bonus tracks:
11. The Dhampir, Pt. I *
12. The Dhampir **
13. Månvisan ***
* Bonus on limited CD mediabook, first chapter of the song
** Bonus on limited deluxe LP artbook, complete version of the 18-minute song
*** Bonus on limited deluxe LP artbook, instrumental song
