Review Summary: A wonderful metal album overflowing with creativity and showcasing the best of Trivium's talents
Trivium are a band that divide a lot of people.
On the one hand you have the fans who love the riffs, screams and thundering drums yet on the other hand you have the detractors who criticise them as Metallica wannabes.
Firstly, I want to make it known that I am a huge Trivium fan but even I was tentative about In Waves. I felt 2006 album The Crusade was a letdown in terms of flair, continuation yet Shogun brought back a lot of the admiration I had for the band and their music.
Imagine my glee when a few weeks ago, Trivium "leaked" title track In Waves - full of fist pumping metal guitar riffs, guttural screams and new drummer Nick Augusto's excellent drumming. Then came Dusk Dismantled which I absolutely love - particularly frontman Matt Heafy's incredible new screaming.
Finally we had Inception of The End which showed a mixture of the sound from Ascendancy and Shogun - perfectly complimenting the two albums and their influence on Trivium's current writing style.
In Waves is a brilliant album which balances itself perfectly between the sound of Ascendancy and that of Shogun. Combining brutal screams, chugging guitar riffs and thunderous drums - In Waves is about as complete a catalogue of Trivium's music as you could wish for.
A couple of the tracks are easily Trivium's heaviest yet - A Skylines Severance and Chaos Reigns but the most surprising thing is that they have nailed a ballad-of-sorts in Of All These Yesterdays which shows off Heafy's much improved clean vocals.
Caustic Are The Ties That Bind is a great balance of heavy and melodic with some of the best lyrics on the album and a brilliant solo.
Trivium have most definitely shaken off the "Metallica-wannabes" tag which has followed them around since their emergence on the music scene and In Waves has not only closed that door but has ripped up the rule book and written three words at the top - Trivium is back!
