Tribulation - The Children of The Night (2015)

   Tribulation debuted as a stunning death metal band, who didn't care much about the traditional tendencies of their local scene, and instead they preferred to go on their own way. These individually independent ambitions have been brought further by a style change that happened step by step.
   "Formulas of Death", their following full-length release became an experimenting album that drifted further from ordinary death metal, and involved more melodic elements. The results were kinda raw, since it was a transitional step, and it wasn't hard to sense, that it's not completely evolved yet. Everything's got clear when "The Children of The Night" came out. It turned out that the intention behind the style switch was way more comprehensive than usual. And what's mainly important: not many bands are able to achieve a radical style switch without ending up with something disappointing, but Tribulation did manage to return with another masterpiece. But this time in the form of gloomy gothic metal with some slight doom and blackened touch. This new Tribulation sounded so different from the old one like if it wasn't even the same band. No signs of death metal left, and the band was able to show a new perspective for gothic metal, that worked perfectly. The influences are mixed and rooting back even to the '80s, but the sound reflects the '10s and creates great unifying frame for the music. Tribulation basically went through on the same path of some early '90s bands who started to play death metal and soon after a style change gained wider popularity and became the icons of the late '90s, bands like Paradise Lost, Tiamat or Sentenced. Only a few decades later, and their "formula of style switch" was quite sophisticated. In total, "The Children of The Night" is an excellent album, potential favorite for the fans of gloomy gothic sound.