Review Summary: "You cannot dislike Trivium if you know how to tune a guitar by ear." - bbejta
The lone Trivium fanboy sat wearily on his bedroom floor, sweat trickling from his brow as he contemplated other insipid pseudo-arguments to make in support of his beloved band. It had not been ten minutes since his previous self-induced orgasm, during which he had been mentally torn asunder by the devastating solo of ‘Into the Mouth of Hell We March’ off of, in his eyes, the WMD that was Shogun. Bearing this physical exhaustion coupled with his inherent lack of communication skills, he was far from a state where he could make remotely eloquent or even coherent thoughts. Nonetheless, he wondered if Trivium would ever produce something of its likes ever again, and even ventured far enough to theorize the improbable event that they would create a record so stellar that even the majority of detractors would reluctantly admit to its greatness. After being mildly disappointed by In Waves, and slightly more so by the two albums that had followed, he halfheartedly ridiculed himself for his hyper-optimism.
Of course, he had still pre-ordered their latest effort, The Sin and the Sentence, with vehement anticipation. As a proponent of absolute and unyielding loyalty, he vowed to collect every single piece of merchandise remotely related to the band. His one and only major letdown was the 2015 edition white-horned dildo he purchased from some shady foreign online retailer that had turned out to be some degree of torture device; truly a suffocating sight. Had it not been for the aforementioned philosophy, he would have discarded the contraption after its first use. With the exception of that, however, his bedroom was bustling with a vast collection of Trivium items that he was truly proud of. Granted, there was hardly anything else in his possession that could even hope to give him a comparable level of satisfaction.
The time had finally come. His eyes beamed wildly as he saw the disgruntled mailman half-assedly place a sizeable parcel in his mailbox. Despising any form of social interaction, he patiently waited for the mailman to move on to the adjacent household. Once that happened, he retrieved the package as fast as his pitiful frame would allow him to. It was exactly as he had imagined; the Trivium bundle containing the Japanese edition of the record, a T-shirt, patches, pins, and an autographed band photo. Without further hesitation, he carefully placed the CD in his laptop and proceeded to listen to it through the highest-quality headphones he had.
Days had passed. He lost count of how many times he had heard the record, but there were nevertheless several things he knew for certain. For the first time in nearly a decade, Trivium had delivered! Having always been fascinated by their guitar solos and leads, the interludes on ‘Beyond Oblivion’, ‘Betrayer’, ‘Beauty in the Sorrow’, and ‘The Revanchist’ were utter bliss. The screams that dominated their earlier works had returned in full force, tastefully juxtaposing themselves besides the new and improved clean vocals, with Matt (and Corey) enunciating clearer than ever before. An emphasis on Paolo was also made evident by his masterful bass work in the outro of ‘Betrayer’, the Slipknot-esque section of ‘The Wretchedness Inside’, and (again) the solo of ‘Beauty in the Sorrow’. Furthermore, their newfound drummer, Alex Bent, was an absolute beast behind the kit! He did not shy away from incorporating features from his tech death background, boasting incredible performances on pretty much every single track, especially when opening the album on its title track and onwards through ‘Beyond Oblivion’, whilst simultaneously demonstrating cognizant control so as to intelligently service the material he played over. The obvious callbacks to their former albums was also an aspect that he immensely appreciated. The intro of ‘Other Worlds’ was reminiscent of In Waves’ ‘Leaving this World Behind’, whereas ‘Sever the Hand’ was a delicious composite of elements from Shogun and Ember to Inferno, particularly during its verses. To top it all off, the album concluded with arguably the band’s heaviest track to date, ‘Thrown into the Fire’, a blistering amalgamation of metalcore, black metal, and death metal with plenty of technical guitar playing as well as a brooding wah-heavy solo section to boot. As amazed as he was by the record as a whole, he was still willing to accept that it wasn’t quite perfect.
Conceding that ‘The Heart from Your Hate’ and ‘Endless Night’ were not quite the masterpieces he had hoped for, he begrudgingly lowered his rating to what he genuinely felt best encapsulated his feelings for the record, a 4.5/5. While recognizing that overall, Trivium had gone far and beyond his expectations, he knew that in his heart Shogun would still reign supreme. Given that this was the case, legions of haters were still indeed dilating their anuses, eager to make pungent deposits on his idols. Alas, the times had hardly changed.
