Review Summary: Forget Shogun and Ascendancy; this is Trivium at their finest.
By combining all the highlights of their prior work and releasing them in one package, Trivium have crafted the strongest selection of songs in their entire career. While it may not be as technical as
Shogun from a purely musical standpoint, nor as lyrically relatable as
In Waves or the dismally-received
Vengeance Falls, the eighth studio album from this Florida metal act reaches a proper balance of each style it takes on. From progressive-leaning thrashy numbers like “The Revanchist” or “Betrayer” to cleanly-sung hard rock anthems like “Endless Night” and “Other Worlds”,
The Sin and the Sentence has something for everyone.
The first major change between this and their previous album is the addition of drummer Alex Bent, formerly of Battlecross and Arkaik and currently of Brain Drill and Dragonlord alongside Trivium. His drumming is some of the most versatile and proficient in modern metal, maintaining the aggression of his technical death and thrash metal roots but not overpowering the mix; he knows when to lay off the aggro, similar to the likes of former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy. Bent is arguably the most skilled at his instrument in Trivium’s career, outclassing Mat Madiro, Nick Augusto, and Travis Smith in one fell swoop. Where Augusto would have made a blast beat sound contrived, Bent’s sound as if they are second nature to him; the buildup to the final breakdown in the eponymous “The Sin and the Sentence” and the blasts before the guitar solo in “Beyond Oblivion” being two examples from the first half of its 57-minute runtime.
The anthemic approach of
Silence In the Snow is retained within this album’s choruses, containing a fresh coat of paint and taken to new heights. Matt Heafy has never sounded better; while some may lament the lack of raspy, James Hetfield-channeling cleans ala
Shogun or
The Crusade, the style he’s chosen works suitably for the writing on display. Whether he’s telling a tale of personal struggle and triumph on “Endless Night”, or sending off a former lover in the aptly named “Betrayer”, the anthemic nature of the writing emanates. The screaming is back and stronger than in efforts prior. Tracks like “Thrown Into the Fire” benefit especially, with Heafy’s ferocious screams supplementing the abundant black metal influence within.
Lyrically,
The Sin and the Sentence takes from multiple different themes. The title track, “The Revanchist”, and “Thrown Into the Fire” contain critical takes on the Catholic Church’s history, “Beyond Oblivion” and “Other Worlds” detail the influence that social media and technology have on our daily lives, and “Beauty In the Sorrow” took its overarching theme from Peter Englund’s World War I novel, coincidentally titled “The Beauty and the Sorrow.” Other tracks emphasize taking back control of your life by any means necessary, such as in “Sever the Hand” and “The Wretchedness Inside”, the latter of which was initially a song that singer Matt Heafy was asked to ghostwrite for another band. A common theme of independence surrounds its content, which in today’s culture is an unusual ideal. Albeit it may be easy to laugh at “Endless Night” for its similar feel to the cringeworthy “Dying In Your Arms” from 2005’s
Ascendancy, the execution of said approach is far and away superior, taking the same formulaic structure and applying far more effort in the process.
As a whole, this album is Trivium at their most engaging. Despite the declining technical difficulty of the music, they have managed to drastically improve their writing, further proving that technicality isn’t everything. Despite the increased ambiguity of the songs' surface-level meanings and common undertones from introduction to conclusion, they managed to include a diverse set of subjects within. Despite losing drummer Mat Madiro two months after their predecessor released, they rebounded by recruiting one of modern metal’s most talented percussionists. For everything that would have caused other bands to go off the hinges and decline in a manner similar to Limp Bizkit in 2003 when
Results May Vary was released, Trivium has prevailed with the strongest album of their career.
