Tribune - Tales

I thoroughly enjoyed this Canadian bands last release ‘Elder Lore/The Dark Arts’ where I stated that they had massive potential. It’s great to hear the fruits of their labour as ‘Tales’ is a concept album based upon the writings of H.P. Lovecraft (yes – this one again!) and H.G. Wells with a sound that is a little more melodic than their former outing but with a lot of depth.

Opener ‘Tales’ begins rather tranquil or rather a little groovy, like some of the heavier stoner groove bands before it ups the aggression into more of their labelled progressive thrash. The clean vocals are really cool and even the aggressive gnarl vocal akin to some metalcore bands really hits the mark and provides much enjoyment. I was expecting musical intricacies based upon the albums concept premise and I am not disappointed. The flip between groove, heavy and lighter sections really feels professional and smooth. The guitar work on ‘Insectoid’ is more up front and faster moving into more melo-death circles but without the tried and tested Swedish copycats, I suppose like some of the earlier God Forbid for want of a lazy comparison. The real meat on the bone for me is ‘King of Ithaca’ which has a really strong clean-ish vocal style, like the UK’s The More I See or even Dexter Holland from the Offspring (purely by tone not style I might add so don’t worry or dismiss!). In between these moments of great reflection you get the aggressive style that you would be accustom too. The flow of the release and each track is pretty remarkable, this is a very easy album to sink your teeth into, Tribune through their song writing just know where to add a spark or change in feel as if they have put themselves into the listeners shoes or rather they are making music that truly justifies reviewers high accolades, such as mine.

This is the release that I would expect Tribune to break through with; this is very strong material that is well written, interesting and technically excellent.