Thursday, March 5, 2015

Tribunal : "Watch You Suffer"





Sorting through some of the band's Cvlt Nation assigned to me . One of them is this German band who dishes out a fairly straight forward mix of nastiness. It meets at that cross roads band metal metal bands that weren't spraying their hair up in the 80's came to. It is a junction where you ask where thrash begins and hard-core punk ends. These guys however were spawned after Entombed who made similar inquiries in regards to death metal. Now the terms d-beat and crust get thrown in the dialogue. My first thought when I first heard this was how I need to down load myself another copy of Entombed's "Wolverine Blues" album. It killed that tape when it came out so I have zero guilt in hunting for that torrent.




The common question I ask bands that are this heavy comes after they have seized my attention  with first song. The question is now what? You have volume, density and a cool guitar tone, but can you write a song? Do you have dynamics? Or are you a one trick pony. This is an ep so it makes the band's job easier.  Like jack hammer sex how long can you keep up that intensity? And does that approach hit the spot or numb you out? The vocals seem to stick with one distorted bark. They adhere to a straight ahead punk beat for the two songs that follow the opener. "Waste of Life" is a quickie at under two minutes. So fans of Nails , will appreciate these guys economic approach to song writing.

The assault they hit you with is so focused on their primary method of punishment until it took a few listens to distinguish the exact songs. These guys have meaty riff's , but are vegan. They have a pretty dope guitar sound, but they are straight edge. I could see these guys being a part of that Victory Records scene from the 90's. I suppose you might hear more Integrity in their sound than Earth Crisis or Snap Case. They also claim to be god-free, which I can under stand the angle they are coming from wanting to be devoid of all crutches. I like some gods, all of Odin's Posse,  the ancient ones as well as other cultural symbols of darkness, but I also want to devour one of those Little Ceaser bacon wrapped pizza's so Tribunal and I can agree to differ. But they don't come across like the are preaching their platform to me.

When it gets down to music "Rotting From Within" is like a meaner b-section to "Waste of Life". The drumming is a little boring, but they do hook into some pretty convincing chugs. I can say in a time where every band is trying to be blackened something, it's refreshing to hear a band that is content just doing what they do. The phrase "chaos reigns" from the Lars Von Tier movie "Anti- Christ" while a nice sentiment to exclaim is starting to get a little over used. When It crops  in "Your God Was Never There", it's one of the few barks that my ears keyed in on.

I'll give these guys a 7, but you might round them up if Entombed styled bands is your thing, even more so if Entombed influenced hardcore bands are your thing. For me I've got a hear like a grave yard they are dying to get it.


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