Tribunal – The Weight of Remembrance (Review)

Tribunal are a Gothic doom metal band from Canada and this is their debut album.

The Weight of Remembrance offers a 48-minute Gothic doom metal journey into darkness and sombre atmospheres. The promo states that this is for fans of My Dying Bride, Candlemass, Type O Negative, Paradise Lost, Occultation, Dream Unending, and Pentagram, and this gives a good overall idea of the waters that Tribunal wade in. This album reminds me strongly of the 90s, and I’d also add an act like The Sins of Thy Beloved to this list too.

Steeped in despair and loss, The Weight of Remembrance is a colossal Tome of gloomy auras and heavy doom. Expressive melodies delve deep into pain and heartache, while the rest of the music paints a sunless vista out of various shades of night. The core of the music is heavy and dark, with blood-red melodies that drip with emotive shadows. Tribunal then make very good use of cello and keyboards to layer the music with an extra level of depth, resulting in songs that exude near-tangible feeling.

The music is well-crafted and contains more hooks and variety than you might be expecting. Sure, the style is well-defined and the band’s vision for their art is clear, but within this each track has its own bleak personality that’s rich with Gothic tragedy and sorrow. This also extends to the vocals, which consist of a mixture of clean singing and harsh vocals. The former are charismatic, soaring, and powerful, and are very well performed by a singer who knows what she is doing with her voice, while the latter are grim and aggressive, both the harsh blackened screams and the dark growled snarls.

The Weight of Remembrance is an enjoyable excursion into Gothic darkness. Tribunal have created an ocean of emotive weight and substance in which the listener can gratefully lose themselves in.

Highly recommended.