The Crusade --- Trivium --- 2006 (Roadrunner)
One of The Batlord's favourite bands (!), Trivium are high --- not number one but in there --- on his list of Poseur Metal Bands, and he really seems to hate them. This, it would appear, is their "most poseur" album, veering away from the death growls (thank the Metal Gods!) and metalcore influences of the previous albums, and containing a more mythological/fantasy line in lyrics and song subjects. I must say, "Ignition", the opener, sounds a lot less like I expected it to. Very raw, very sort of haphazard in its arrangement, a little amateurish if I'm honest. It settles down though and eventually has a nice hook in it that reminds me a little of Ten.
Trouble is then it takes off again, back more or less in the style it opened, and it's almost as if this is two songs: the verses sparse and raw, while the chorus is much more melodic, structured much better. As if they can't make up their mind what they want to be. Will this be typical of Trivium's music as the album goes on? Well, following "Ignition" we get "Detonation", which seems quite similar to the previous track, although it strides along with a certain swagger, driven on Travis Smith's drums and the twin guitar attack of Matt Heafy and Cory Beaulieu. Yeah, it's decent enough and seems to hold together quite well. Good guitar solo. "Entrance of the conflagration" (huh? Does that title even make sense?) rocks along with great enthusiasm and energy, thundering, rattling drums and screaming guitars, and you know, at least Heafy doesn't growl!
The pace doesn't slacken for "Anthem (We are the fire)" though there is a certain sense of derivativity about it. Rocks well though. "Unrepentant" is good too, though I'm not seeing too much here that really stands out. It's all pretty decent but nothing that really differentiates one track from another, and they're kind of blurring together a little. That's not really fair, but I am finding it hard to find interesting things to write as the album winds on. Well, "And sadness will sear" is slower, a bit grindy and seems to have some sort of sitar-like sound, so that's different. Sort of little progressive metal touches in the guitar riff, and a nice expressive solo too. I'd definitely list this as my favourite track on an album that, so far, has been mostly unremarkable.
There's a real power metal feel to "Becoming the dragon", and so far I've heard neither growl nor scream --- oh wait, there they are! Well, just sort of incidentally really. Great steamhammer drumming and powerful fretwork from the boys, but you kind of begin to wonder are their hearts really in it or are they just going through the motions? More fretburning on "To the rats" and the hammer is well and truly brought down as the band break the speed limit, thrashing along at breakneck speed, but they still manage to throw in a pretty catchy hook in the chorus. It's the same problem as with the opener: the main part of the song is chaotic and disorganised while the chorus seems to bear no resemblance to it.
It's more of the same for "This world can't tear us apart" --- good, or at least not bad, but nothing that blows my skirt up --- and "Tread the floods" more or less treads (sorry) the same path, though it can't be denied there's some great guitar histrionics going on. Trouble is, superhot fret madness on its own does not make great songs and while there are some good ideas here they're kind of muddled and not very well thought out. In my opinion. Yeah. The next two kind of just slide by for me, and the album ends on the title track, an eight-minute instrumental which is of course largely guitar wankery but pretty damn good.
TRACKLISTING
1. Ignition
2. Demolition
3. Entrance of the conflagration
4. Anthem (We are the fire)
5. Unrepentant
6. And sadness will sear
7. Becoming the dragon
8. To the rats
9. This world can't tear us apart
10. Tread the floods
11. Contempt breeds contamination
12. The rising
13. The Crusade
All in all, I'd have to say I don't have a huge amount of praise for Trivium, but neither do I think they're the worst out there. A lot of their material is very derivative, as I've said earlier, and for me they could be even more accused of being a poseur band than Dragonforce, so I see where His Batship is coming from. That said, they can play certainly and their singer is okay, but again the confused nature of their songwriting and the execution of their songs is a little hard to get my head around. Seems like they could have one or two really good songs if they tried, but they seem happier to kind of just dance around, wave guitars and not take their music too seriously.
I suppose that, in the end, could prove to be the undoing of them. If you don't take yourself seriously, then how can you expect anyone else to?
Read more here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trivium_%28band%29