TRIVIUM – “What The Dead Men Say” Album Review

ALBUM SUMMARY

REVIEW – IN SHORT

If you’re looking for straight-forward and mindless, albeit solid and entertaining, metal then I’ll refer you to TESTAMENT’s “Titans of Creation“. However, if you’re looking for innovative, dynamic metal with complex composition and songs requiring multiple listens to fully appreciate, look no further than TRIVIUM’s “What The Dead Men Say“. TRIVIUM’s new album builds on the success of 2017s “The Sin and the Sentence”. Many fans consider “The Sin and the Sentence” as the album that got TRIVIUM back on the right track after several outings that divided fans. If that is to be believed, then “What The Dead Men Say” solidifies TRIVIUM as a mature and inspired metal band who is hitting – dare I say – their peak. Some fans and critics have even compared this WTDMS to TRIVIUM’s best albums – “Ascendancy” and “Shogun” – and I tend to agree.

In simple terms, this album takes sounds and influences from TRIVIUM’s entire catalogue and meshes them together in a cohesive, yet varied album. It’s an album filled with riffs and sounds that range from Iron Maiden to Gojira. Most metal fans will find something to appreciate about this record.

Now, let’s talk standouts. At different points in the album, each member of the band has notable moments. Matt Heafy’s vocals include clean singing, screaming, and even clean vocals with added grit that we’ve never heard from the band before. His vocal performance is arguably the best in TRIVIUM’s discography. The guitars, Heafy and Corey Beaulieu, are so in-sync and precise they make difficult riffs and techniques look easy- no note is out of place, and nearly every solo weaves well into the songs. Last is the rhythm section. I cannot say enough about Paulo Gregoletto’s bass and Alex Bent’s drumming. Their performances may be more impactful than the guitars on this album. Thanks to the sound mixing, the basslines are noticeable, powerful, and form the base of each song. Alex Bent is undoubtedly among the best drummers in metal right now and his performance on the 2 most recent TRIVIUM albums raises each album to a new level.

Each song on the album has something to offer. Some are brutally heavy, others are a softer and more mainstream, but each is inspired and worth your time. “Amongst the Shadows & the Stones” may be my new favorite TRIVIUM track. Overall, while album isn’t “perfect” it’s an example of metals ability to continue to evolve. It’s also a great example of what we can hope to get from the metal genre in the 2020’s: dynamic, heavy, soft, catchy, brutal, and performed with precision. The album will appeal to a wide audience and should be a contender for 2020 album of the year.

My personal favorites: “Amongst the Shadows & the Stones”, “The Defiant”, “Bending the Arc To Fear”, “The Ones We Leave Behind”, “What the Dead Men Say”