If you slipped into a coma during Feliciano López and Gilles Müller’s 264-minute match at the 2009 Australian Open, we’re glad you’re back. We have important news. You remember Tribulation, right? The Swedish death metallers who released their debut, The Horror, on the same day as that tennis showdown? They’re basically Fields Of The Nephilim now.
Unbelievable, yeah. Like, imagine if Morbid Angel went industria- another conversation for another time. Point is, shit happens, people change. The quartet mutated across five albums, pinching influence from The Cure, Ozzy Osbourne, Sisters Of Mercy, Watain – liberally, uniquely, tied in a lacy bow by Johannes Andersson’s one-note death-grunts. Then Jonathan Hultén, one of Tribulation’s core songwriters, left.
Sub Rosa In Æternum doesn’t flounder from Jonathan-less-ness. It flourishes. Three of these songs swaddle themselves in Tribulation’s usual wardrobe, unspooling twin-lead harmonies, grotty screaming, jaunty rhythms and piano. The other six will split people like that poor fella in Bone Tomahawk.
Much of Sub Rosa..., while parading the band’s analogue flavour of melancholy, is straight-up goth rock, post-punk, music to imbibe bedecked in a ruff and cape. Murder In Red is the obvious culprit: a drum machine dirge-cum-banger-most-baroque, snare snapping like a neck, vibes so spooky they namedrop a Dario Argento movie. The music’s a fresh lick of skin on old bones, a velveteen coffin to house Johannes’s newfound singing.
And it’s delicious. He slinks through Drink The Love Of God cooler than James Dean frozen in carbonite, riding the key-change with a wink; he does wistful Nick Cave on Reaping Song, riposting Oscar Leander’s militaristic percussion. Backed by new guitarist Joseph Tholl’s wilting vocals, Johannes embodies that Danzig truism: fuckin’ attitude. Game, set, bat.
Sub Rosa In Æternum is out this Friday, October 28, via Century Media
