Tribulation - The Formulas of Death (2013)

First things first: listen to The Formulas of Death on Bandcamp.

This one's a bit difficult to get a handle on.

Tribulation is Swedish death metal.  However, unlike the glut of bands who are pursuing an old-school sound (complete with buzzing guitars and generally bad production), Tribulation has made a record which sounds good and doesn't sound derivative.  As to whether or not it is actually among the greats of 2013, I'm not entirely sure.  Perhaps it is being derivative under the surface somewhere that I haven't figured out yet.

The Formulas of Death is a long record.  It's 75 minutes worth of death metal with melodic twists and turns.  In fact, I'd say that for most of its running time, the band is pursuing melodic content.  Ample time of "Suspiria" and "Apparitions" (the two longest tracks) have clean guitars playing melodies rather than rhythmic devices.  Even when the guitars are distorted as you'd expect, the playing is something not quite what you'd normally hear.

Personally, I think this is something to be lauded.  Too few musicians take chances with the genre they're working in.  We've seen this in various metal sub-genres, but especially in death and black, where the codified tenets of each tend to be (pardon the pun) suffocating.  They're also unwilling to change, for the most part.

Next time, more riffs.  And maybe trim some fat.