Trivium - The Crusade
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Free Music Notes for The Crusade
Free Music Review: I expect more from a band with creepy CD Covers
Hit: 2 Stars
A friend of mine recommended this band to me. While I do value his opinion I was not impressed by this record. I have not heard their previous releases and I may give them another try but The Crusade is very tame and watered down. With this effort Trivium appears to trying too hard to emulate the mainstream successes of their influences. There just isn't anything here that I have not already heard - I actually had some weird 1986 flashback while listening to this. The flashback was fun the CD is disappointing. Free Music Review: Politically correct metal
Hit: 2 Stars
This album recycles some good riffs from the 80's but you can tell these guys are right out of high school by reading their lyrics - the English class PC brainwashing hasn't quite worn off. They also use the thesaurus a little too loosely: "Wed-locked a prison Of antiquation" Good lord who wrote that? Their music may be copped from Metallica but the lyrics are something you would expect from Natalie Merchant (for you younger people she was the singer of 10,000 Maniacs in the 80's - a favorite of unpopular drama club girls who blamed all of their personal insecurities on society, patriarchy, sexism, homophobia and Ronald Reagan).Free Music Review: excellent, but different
Hit: 4 Stars
Trivium is a new favorite speed metal/thrash band of mine. They are bringing intricate guitar solos back into modern heavy metal music, much to the everlasting joy of metal fans like me, who are tiring of the repetitive guitar "riffing" of most modern nu-metal-influenced bands. These guys play fast and complex and are good at it.
Their first two albums are fantastic, especially their sophomore effort
"Ascendancy", but to be honest, I was a bit concerned about buying their new one. I had read some disturbing internet rumors about it being a transparent Metallica rip-off. And then the first song was released on their MySpace page, called "Detonation," and I was not terribly thrilled with it. It sounded like they were trying too hard to sound like early Metallica, which is a noble thing to attempt, but I just wasn't into it. I'm not into early Metallica at all, really. But I bought it anyway, cause I had to hear it for myself and I chose to support the band by purchasing the album instead of just downloading it. And at first, I was pretty worried.
The first track is called "Ignition" and sounds a lot like the second track, the aforementioned "Detonation." They aren't bad songs, per se, but they seemed a bit too old-school for a band that I felt was the beginning of the new age of speed metal. The guitar work was brilliant as ever, but the tone of the music just did not click.
One thing I did kind of like was the fact that the lead singer, Matt Heafy, was actually singing this time around. Their first two albums were full of angsty, unintelligible screaming for the most part. And while I have no problem with that, there are times when I actually like to understand what the lead singer is saying. But he doesn't scream barely at all this album, which is a bummer cause he was a good screamer. And other reviewers have mentioned the apparent similarity between Heafy's voice and the singing voice of one James Hetfield. This only fueled the "Metallica rip-off" claims more.
The third track, "Entrance Of The Conflagration," was the first one to really pick up my interest. It's a bit heavier than the first two, and without the more obvious Metallica influence. But it's the lyrics that really got me, which were helped by Heafy's clear singing.
"Forcing her own blood down / Beneath the water to drown / Lying dead with eyes wide open"
Like most metal bands, Trivium's lyrics took a back seat to the music on their first two albums. Their lyrics were better than some, but nothing really special, dealing with the common themes of depression, betrayal, angst, and death. But this was the first song that was clearly about something specific. Afterward, I learned that the song is about Andrea Yates, the woman who drowned her five young children in a bathtub. That's serious, right there.
The next song is "Anthem (We Are The Fire)," which I liked because of its song-along chorus and positive vibe. By this point, I was warming to the album after its ho-hum first two tracks.
Track five is the song "Unrepentant," which grabbed me again because of its very specific lyrics. Like "Entrance of the Conflagration," it was a song about a brutal real-life murder, this time about a Pakistani man named Nazir Ahmad who murdered his four daughters in an honor killing.
The next song is "And Sadness Will Sear", which is quite simply the most powerful song Trivium has ever done. It is about the murder of Matthew Shepard, the gay man in Wyoming who was brutally beaten, tied to a fence in a field, and left to die. Heafy sings the verses in a soft, subdued voice and cries out the chorus very passionately. The guitar work is not a prominent in this song, limited to the short solo and song's finale, but the lyrics are sorrowful and heartfelt.
"Tied to the fence as they break you / And sadness will sear / Cold is the wind that will freeze you / And sadness will sear / It's 12:53 AM when the scarecrow died / A victim of society's cruelty / It's 12:53 AM when the shepherd died"
Track seven is "Becoming The Dragon", a fast and heavy rocker to pick up the pace after the somber "And Sadness Will Sear." It's got a great song-along chorus and a unique solo near the end of the song.
"To The Rats" is the next song, one of the fastest on the album so far. The lyrics are forgettable, but the guitar work once more is fast and relentless. And it marks the sixth song in a row that doesn't sound like Metallica. One more odd thing about this track is that they swear a few times, and Trivium doesn't really swear that much.
"This World Can't Tear Us Apart" is next, and if you can't tell from the title, this is the closest Trivium gets to an actual love song on any of their albums. It's not a slow song by any rate, with some great soloing, but the lyrics at times do get a little cheesy. A cheesy love song is okay though if you don't listen to the words so much.
Track number ten is the song "Tread The Floods", which should totally be released as a single. It's the best straightforward song on the album, fast and complex music with catchy lyrics, and almost impossible not to headbang to.
"Tread the floods so you can hope to seize / Your own reality before it escapes thee / Watch yourself drown in disarray / It's time to break away or we'll die today" I know those aren't the best lyrics in the world. Nobody uses the word "thee" anymore. But the initial guitar solo and the longer solo in the middle of the song are totally awesome.
The next track is the awkwardly-titled "Contempt Breeds Contamination," which sounds like something off a Hatebreed album. The song itself is another tale of brutality and murder, this time the death of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man shot to death by New York police officers.
"The blood is on your hands / Hands which were supposed to protect
People like the man you blew away / This isn't justice, this is corruption
The four protectors fired 41 shots / Hitting him 19 times / Searching the body, there were no weapons found / He lies with all who died in vain."
The twelfth track is "The Rising," one of the coolest songs Trivium has done to date. It's got a groovy beat and sounds like a hand-clapping arena rocker from someone like Bruce Springsteen. Oddly enough, this song demonstrates Trivium's talent, because it's unlike anything they have done so far. And it's got another rocking chorus:
"So raise your voices with me / And sing this song of unity / So raise your hands up with me / And hold this moment eternally"
The last song, aptly titled "The Crusade" is the song all speed metal freaks wait for. It's an eight-minute long instrumental. Trivium, if memory serves, has never done a real instrumental before, and this raging, adrenaline-fueled piece of metal mastery is one of the best I've heard in years.
So it turns out my worries were unfounded. In my opinion, the two weakest songs on the album were the first two tracks, and the rest of the album is just completely awesome. Definitely Trivium's best, and one of the best metal albums released this year. Those who claim it's a Metallica rip-off probably stopped listening after the first two songs, which I can't really blame them for, cause I was tempted to. But some of the songs are just unbelievable, in particular "Entrance Of The Conflagration," "And Sadness Will Sear," "Tread The Floods," and "The Rising."
Free Music Review: Good thrash
Hit: 5 Stars
I like this CD a lot, it brings the old school thrash into the new day today. Trivium has been labeled by some as the next Metallica, and at times it may sound like it on this album, yet any Trivium fan will be able to tell the difference. This is the best album from Trivium and I love the change in sound being a thrash metal fan myself, but overall it ranks up there pretty high for thrash metal CD favorites.Free Music Review: New Masters of thrash.
Hit: 5 Stars
This cd by trivium is better than the other two cds they did and other thrash cds. Everbody say they sound like metallica, but the only thing that sounds like metallica is the singer and maybe some other stuff but they dont sound that much like metallica. I think this is a great cd and this band has gotten better.