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trivium whatthedeadmensay
Artist: Trivium
Title: What The Dead Men Say
Genre: Metal
Release Date: 24th April 2020
Label: Roadrunner Records


Album Review

The band, led by front man Matt Heafy, has reached a stage where they hardly have to think about their artistic direction to do justice to anyone. TRIVIUM do what they want, based on the success of their discography. Even if they allow themselves a few deviations, like in ‘Silence In The Snow’ (2015), their formula works with the public. ‘What The Dead Men Say’ is the realization of a band that lives very well together and fully embraces their influences, a preference for melodic death, thrash, black and hardcore.

‘What The Dead Men Say’ condenses the overall picture of the band in only ten tracks. The result was a glowing sixteen-day recording under the direction of Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA). TRIVIUM’s new work is one of the most meticulous in its conception and one of the simplest in its realization. The two-minute melodic chords of the intro ‘IX’ show this very assertive tendency to melodic death before they are intensified by the groovy riffing of ‘What The Dead Men Say’. The track is a kind of mixture of Metalcore and more traditional Death-impulses or even real Black Metal during a blast beat passage. Matt Heafy switches between screaming and clear voice with the ease we know from him.

The privileged melodies of ‘What The Dead Men Say’ refer to the darker atmospheres of the band’s early days, marked by more subtle arrangements, which are the testimony of the gigantic experience the band has gathered over the last fifteen years. ‘Catastrophist’ is one of the main titles of the work, a mixture of death with Scandinavian influences and a chorus made for the goose-pimple moments. TRIVIUM has not lost its grip and enjoys maximizing its impact. So, TRIVIUM goes in all directions and stays true to itself. Matt’s sound work on ‘Amongst The Shadows And The Stones’ illustrates the gigantic progress the frontman has made since ‘Silence In The Snow’. His singing is shamelessly uncomplicated, as is his guitar playing.

The roaring bass line of ‘Bleed Into Me’ forms the backbone of the song and harmonizes in all senses. TRIVIUM plays with the boundaries of clichés and gradually counteracts first impressions. If you give ‘What The Dead Men Say’ time and leave prejudices (such as that TRIVIUM are a mainstream band) behind, the album can be simply addictive. The only flaw of ‘The Dead Men Say’ is a little hint of repetition, which can sometimes be equated with its predecessor ‘The Sin And The Sentence’ (2017). Fact remains that everything works out naturally with what the dead men say. ‘What The Dead Men Say’ is full of great songs, almost fifty minutes, which pass by in a flash and reveal all guilty pleasures.


Tracklist

01. IX
02. What The Dead Men Say
03. Catastrophist
04. Amongst The Shadows And The Stones
05. Bleed Into Me
06. The Defiant
07. Sickness Unto You
08. Scattering The Ashes
09. Bending The Arc To Fear
10. The Ones We Leave Behind


Line-up

Matt Heafy – Lead Vocals, Guitars
Corey Beaulieu – Guitars, Backing Vocals
Paolo Gregoletto – Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Alex Bent – Drums, Percussion


Website

www.trivium.org


Cover Picture

trivium whatthedeadmensay


Rating

Music: 8
Sound: 9
Total: 8.5 / 10




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