Tirades of Truth: Trivium - In Waves

So here is Trivium's follow up to Shogun, which as I said before is one of those "instant classics", if nothing else the title track is epic.

There seems be a lot of people saying that this album combines the best of Ascendancy and Shogun, basically forgetting all about The Crusade. The Crusade gets a bad rap because they threw out all screams and went for a more commercialized sound. But there are times as I listened to this album that I couldn't help, but think "this is what The Crusade could have been." Some of the songs have that simple song structure that was present on The Crusade, but this time the vocals aren't one dimensional. Listen to A Gray So Dark, that song could have easily been on The Crusade...even down to the vocals.


I don't really hear a lot of the Ascendancy references that I keep reading. Maybe it's in the vocal delivery? I'm not sure. I think Ascendancy is where the band found their sound. They simplified & commercialized it too much for The Crusade, but for the most part it has stayed the same.

A quick note about the title track, In Waves. Holy crap! This song is killer. One thing I have noticed with Trivium is that their title tracks have gotten better and better with each album. The Crusade had that insane instrumental, Shogun was epic...that build up amazing. Now with In Waves, they wrote a song that was definitely catchier and easier to sit through (those other title tracks were 8 minutes and 12 minutes respectively), but that doesn't take away from how great it is. In fact, if not for that stupid intro, this song would easily make my Top 10 lead off tracks.


While not as good as Ascendancy or Shogun, it's definitely a solid album. This would be a good album to introduce people to Trivium. It has their catchy writing, diverse vocals, and does a good job of displaying their playing abilities.

I don't think this will be my number 1 album of the year, Mercenary's latest is just that good.  But it just came out so maybe it will grow on me.