Trivium: Bringers of Devastation

When Matt Heafy, Paolo Gregoletto and Corey Beaulieu wrote Ascendency, releasing it in 2005, they probably never expected the result would be as monumental as it was. The record, which celebrated its 15th birthday in March of this year, made TRIVIUM the new darlings of the metal world – particularly here in the UK. Fast-forward 15 years, and TRIVIUM’s relationship with the metal scene has fallen from grace, risen, fallen again and most recently rocketed to all new heights. Even with the release of their ninth album, What The Dead Men Say, looming, the band are still very aware of the impact Ascendency had on their career.

“We never thought that Ascendency was going to be our break through record. It was definitely a life changing album for us, everything was different after we released it,” Gregoletto muses, reflecting on the impact of Ascendency. “I still think that album is one of our strongest, it still holds up. I love playing the tracks live, they feel so great to play. I couldn’t be more proud of having that album in our catalogue.”

He’s not wrong. The world over, TRIVIUM fans still almost universally rank Ascendency as one of their strongest releases. However, while Gregoletto does stress the importance of Ascendency to the band’s career trajectory, he’s also keen to reinforce the fact that TRIVIUM are no one-hit-wonder. “I’m really happy because 15 years later, we’re not a band with our best days in the past because we made that one great record [and nothing else].” He comments, before drawing the conversation back to the band’s upcoming release. “I feel like we’ve always been able to come up with something new – I think with this new record, we’ve really got something very cool here.”

Again, he’s not wrong; Greoletto is two for two. What The Dead Men Say is an excellent example of a band who have reached maturity, and are at their best. TRIVIUM are the embodiment of musical evolution, over the course of their career, every album has taken a wild turn from its predecessor. Their debut, Embers To Inferno, was a flawed, but ultimately charming, piece of early-2000s metalcore, and while Ascendency fell into that same genre-bracket it saw Heafy, Gregoletto and Beaulieu become masters of their genre. The Crusade was a total 180 – solid in many ways, but it lacked the passion of its predecessor, while Shogun is a progressive thrash masterpiece.

Into their output over the last decade, In Waves saw a return to a more traditional metalcore formula, complete with the arena-levelling choruses and prog flourishes of Shogun, while Vengeance Falls abandoned almost all of the band’s heaviest aspects. Silence In The Snow was a criminally overlooked record – far from the metalcore roots that TRIVIUM fans know and love, often falling into pure DIO and IRON MAIDEN worship. Then TRIVIUM came to The Sin & The Sentence – their strongest material in over a decade, it saw the core trio of Heafy, Gregoletto and Beaulieu come full circle, and blend the best elements of their entire discography. What The Dead Men Say doubles down on this. It is the sum of its eight forefathers, a product of a career’s worth of evolution and the result of TRIVIUM finally finding their identity.

“That evolution has been the nature of things. TRIVIUM has had some lineup changes, and whenever you change up the chemistry, the writing is going to change. We’ve always had different ideas at the start of writing records, and we’ve definitely never been a band who has wanted to write the easy way,” Gregoletto reflects on the evolution of TRIVIUM, from Ember to Inferno to What the Dead Men Say, before discussing the consistency between the last two TRIVIUM albums. “I feel like with our last record we did find something great with The Sin & The Sentence. Bringing Alex [Bent, drums] into the band really stabilized us in a lot of ways, and he brought a lot of new energy to the band. What The Dead Men Say is a great follow up to the last record. There’s similarities, but it was about making each song count and not take such a left turn. We wanted to build upon what we did on the last record, and out do it.”

Narrowing in on What The Dead Men Say, Gregoletto continued to play an incredibly vital role in the creation of the record. As well as continuing the brilliant song-writing partnership he has with Heafy and Beaulieu, Gregoletto also contributed a huge swathe of lyrics this time around. The record takes its name from one of the more obscure works of the author Philip K. Dick, and while What The Dead Men Say certainly isn’t a concept record based on this story, Gregoletto was drawn to many of the themes in Dick’s work, embedding them within the lyrics.

“A lot of Philip K. Dick’s work deals with in-between states, with people not knowing if they’re alive, if they’re real, if what’s happening is a figment of their imagination.” Gregoletto explains on the influence of Philip K. Dick on the new album. “Throughout the story [of Dick’s What The Dead Men Say] you’re always questioning if what’s happening is real or if a character is just imagining it all. I used that as a way to frame the lyrics, as a person trapped or feeling disconnected.”

But while themes of a lack of objective reality, disconnection from the world and altered states of being are present throughout all of What The Dead Men Say, TRIVIUM also hone in on more universal feelings of loss. Most notably, Beaulieu wrote the music of Scattering The Ashes, expressing the feelings he felt of scattering the ashes of his grandparents with his family. While this would have been a deeply moving area to touch on, Gregoletto instead moved away from the personal, using Beaulieu’s experience to craft a story of his own. “I used a father and son dynamic, going through things in life and not reconciling their differences, not being able to figure out how to get past certain things and by the time they can get to a point where they can make things right, it’s too late,” Gregoletto explains. “Life is not a perfect movie ending. A lot of the time, things just end with unresolved issues. I wanted to take the gravity of what Corey had gone through, but build it into something that was more universal.”

What The Dead Men Say is a remarkable achievement for TRIVIUM. Thematically dark and musically brilliant, it’s clear that the band have really struck gold with their current sound, and 17 years of evolution from Embers To Inferno ‘til now have more than paid off. The stabilising influence of Alex Bent is monumental, and it appears TRIVIUM have finally discovered who they are – far removed from metalcore stereotypes, ‘80s thrash worship and radical sonic changes just because they can, TRIVIUM are onto something very special indeed.

What the Dead Men Say is out now via Roadrunner Records. 

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