By Andrew Bansal
August 27th 2016, The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA: Swedish metal heartthrobs Tribulation are currently on a US headline tour, and after starting this short two-week run with an appearance on this year’s Psycho Las Vegas festival, they arrived in the Los Angeles area, to a packed house at the Troubadour in West Hollywood last Saturday August 27th. Since their 2004 inception, Tribulation have released three full-length albums and opened for the likes of Watain, Behemoth, Cannibal Corpse, Deafheaven and Abbath in the United States to make a mark playing their brand of progressive/melodic black/death metal. This time, they have returned as headliners and have brought with them Youth Code and Horrendous as support acts. Tribulation have garnered a strong and rapidly growing fan-base in Los Angeles, and a majority of them congregated at the Troubadour in anticipation of a great performance from the Swedish quartet.
Doors opened at 7 PM and the show began promptly, as Washington DC/Philadelphia PA based death metal quartet Horrendous proactively took the stage five minutes before the scheduled 8 PM start time. On their first US tour of this magnitude and visiting some cities they’ve never played before, the 6-year, 3-album old Horrendous were a new entity to most attendees here but formed a long-lasting first impression with a highly enjoyable exhibition of technical prowess, even as they kept the heaviness quotient intact and justified the death metal tag, serving to be an appropriate opener for the musical tastes of Tribulation fans. Their sound and song arrangements at times emanated traits of bands like Death and Intronaut, and they came across as the kind of extreme metal band even non-fans of the sub-genre would most likely appreciate, to the extent that their name in itself could be deemed as somewhat of a misnomer. These young men brought energy and pedigree to this stage, earned a well-deserved applause from a sizably populated Troubadour even in this early phase of the evening, and will surely be on many such tours in the foreseeable future.
With the nature of the music industry nowadays, bands are striving to do whatever it takes to expose their music and live show to as many people as possible, even if it means touring with bands vastly different in style, and in those cases, the band attempts to stand out as a pleasant surprise to an unsuspecting audience. Los Angeles-based industrial/EBM duo Youth Code find themselves in such a predicament as part of a touring package wherein they’re sandwiched between two extreme metal bands. Youth Code are no strangers to alien crowds, having made appearances on hardcore/punk/crossover packages in the past, and one of the most interesting aspects of this show was the curiosity to discover how they would handle the task of performing to a Tribulation/Horrendous crowd.
Sara Taylor on vocals and Ryan George on keys/programming and occasional vocals took the stage at 8:45, and through the next 35 minutes, put forth an undeniably great set. Sara Taylor used every bit of the stage and more, showing boundless intensity both in her vocal delivery as well as stage movements. At one point, she even started slapping herself furiously. Meanwhile, Ryan George was orchestrating beats and rhythms akin to old-school industrial music, even with elements of ’80s synthwave/pulsewave at times. Youth Code came across as a perfect blend of hardcore and industrial/electronic music. Although clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, specially at a show like this, they did not clear the room by any means, and in fact got a more than decent response, as a few metalheads in the front row were even seen head-banging to Youth Code’s beat. One must welcome such diversity in touring lineups, because it gives attendees a chance to experience sub-genres of music they wouldn’t normally seek out.
Following the openers’ sets, the Troubadour got completely filled rather quickly, and at 9:50, Tribulation took the stage amidst tremendous excitement. They proceeded onto play a 10-song set comprising mostly of tunes from ‘The Children Of The Night’ (2015) and ‘The Formulas Of Death’ (2013) albums, but took it as far back as 2009 with one song from the debut album ‘The Horror’. They may have been described as underwhelming, overhyped and overrated on this website before, but that was a review of their performance as an opening act on the four-band Decibel Tour package earlier this year, and they had to be given another chance at a headline show. Sure enough, this was a far better representation of them as musicians and as a live band. The energy of a room full of their own fans certainly inspired them to put their best foot forward more so than they did as openers, the Troubadour stage suited them better than the Regent did, and the sound quality here was also greatly superior, thanks in part to sound man Fred Etsby, who handled the soundboard for all three bands. He worked with Enforcer and Warbringer on the US tour they did together this past winter, undoubtedly bringing the best out of both those bands every night, and has started this tour doing much of the same for Tribulation, Youth Code and Horrendous.
Musically, Tribulation are categorized under the extreme metal umbrella but the mellower, proggy elements in their music stand out much more, to the extent that despite the harsh vocals, the listener shouldn’t even perceive them as an extreme metal band. All four members bring solid musicianship and attractive presence to the stage (“the best looking band in metal”, according to Youth Code vocalist Sara Taylor), but the corpse paint almost seems like a fashion statement and perhaps should be taken that way because this is not your run-of-the-mill paint-wearing black metal band by any means. It’s a good thing that Tribulation doesn’t take the non-musical aspects of black metal too seriously, because it gets rather contrived and excessive when bands start using real human/animal blood, rotting animal heads and things of that nature on stage and try so hard to show how brutal they are when they can’t even play their instruments.
Going back to the mid-70s and looking through the past nearly four decades, Sweden has had a long history of producing cheesy metal bands. Europe, Bathory, Amon Amarth, HammerFall, Grand Magus, Watain, Sabaton, Crashdiet, Enforcer, Ghost … the list can go on and on. Tribulation are very much carrying on the tradition, with their dress sense, guitar-playing poses, movements, the song titles, lyrical themes, and the kvlt-style ‘v’ in their logo in place of the ‘u’. The cheesiness makes their live show entertaining, specially when it’s their headline show and they come into their own, feeding off of their legion of dedicated and loyal fans. Bassist/vocalist Johannes Andersson fronted the band and commanded the room with aplomb, speaking in perfect English aside from excelling at bass and vocals. His band mates were equally impressive, guitarist Jonathan Hultén in particular drawing attention with his ballerina-like moves. He eventually took it a step too far as he fell off the stage towards the end of the show and broke two ribs, but still finished the set and was rushed to the hospital straight after. He has since recovered sufficiently for the band to continue the tour without canceling any shows.
Unlike the last time they played a show in Los Angeles, this performance from Tribulation proved that there is probably some justification to the hype and fanfare that surrounds them. Musically, they are yet to release that one truly special, mind-blowing album, and seem to have it in them to take their live show to greater heights, but even as they are now, Tribulation is a band worth seeing as a headliner.
Overall, a highly entertaining show presenting three hugely varied acts, in a setting very much apt for it.
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Tribulation set list:
01. Strange Gateways Beckon
02. Melancholia
03. Winds
04. Seduced by the Smell of Rotten Flesh
05. The Motherhood of God
06. Suspiria de profundis
07. Rånda
08. Ultra Silvam
09. In the Dreams of the Dead
10. When the Sky Is Black With Devils
Tribulation remaining US tour dates with Youth Code & Horrendous:
08/30/2016 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court +
08/31/2016 – Denver, CO @ Marquis Theatre +
09/02/2016 – Minneapolis, MN @ 7th Street Entry +
09/03/2016 – Chicago, IL @ Sub T +
09/04/2016 – Detroit, MI @ El Club +
09/05/2016 – Toronto, ON @ The Garrison %
09/06/2016 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa %
09/07/2016 – Boston, MA @ Great Scott +
09/08/2016 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Foundry +
09/09/2016 – Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory +
09/10/2016 – Raleigh, NC @ Hopscotch Fest +
09/11/2016 – Washington, DC @ Rock n’ Roll Hotel +
+ = w/ Youth Code
% = w/ Cauldron