Review by Saxy S for Trivium - In the Court of the Dragon (2021)
I had to skip out on Trivium's 2020 album What The Dead Men Say because of a ever inflating schedule during the beginning of that year that was only exacerbated by the COVID-19 lockdown. By the time I finally found the time to give it a listen, I enjoyed what I heard, but felt like Trivium were going to have a difficult time maintaining their momentum following The Sin And The Sentence, which basically serves as a retrospective album for the band. What could they possibly do next?
Well apparently the answer to that question was throw it back to the earliest albums like Embers To Inferno and Ascendancy with a significantly heavier thrash influence. And my goodness is it not one pleasant listen! I've always liked Trivium and there brand of "progressive metalcore" that has been brewing since Shogun, and this record may see it at its closest to greatness so far!
And it all starts with production. Paulo's bass is finally given some much needed independence from the rhythm guitars and sounds more pronounced during the doubling passages. The chorus on "No Way Back Just Through", "Like A Sword Over Damocles" are fully engulfing and sound heavier than any previous Trivium album, and of course, the breakdowns on tracks like "The Shadow Of The Abbatoir" is monstrous, heavy and awesome.
The guitar work on In The Court Of The Dragon is about what you might expect from a Trivium album: very thrash oriented with an emphasis on guitar leads and solos. "Fall Into Your Hands" has a really cool primary riff and the solos are smooth in that they don't follow simple pentatonic/blues patterns. The title track is a great opener with a huge chorus and complimented by the accompanying guitar lead. The vocals are a little bit underwhelming; Matt Heafy has an awesome clean vocal timbre and while that certainly does get plenty of use on this album, it feels like more of the screaming is also done by Heafy, who in comparison to Corey Beaulieu, does not have as powerful of a singing voice. Speaking of powerful, these drums are insane by metalcore standards! Pretty much every song has at least one blast beat section to compliment the heavy, slower grooves of the breakdowns. And the drum fills are massive as well. Sometimes I wis h that Alex Bent would show a little bit more restraint with a little bit more frequency.
Where this album loses me the most is some of the more progressive songwriting choices. In The Court Of The Dragon has some explosive riffs, choruses and breakdowns, but songs like "The Phalanx" and "Fall Into Your Hands" have the fairly common problem of trying to fit in too many ideas into one single track and as a result, some of those moments very quickly become secondary to something else that is either less catchy or a technical wankery section that causes it to lose its momentum. On the other hand, while "Feast Of Fire" is the album's most crossover friendly song, it also feels quite formulaic as an alternative metal track and does not mesh well with anything else on this album.
Judging by that album cover, you would be forgiven if you thought that In The Court Of The Dragon was some kind of power metal album. And I will admit, this album might be one of Trivium's least metalcore album's to date with all of the blistering solos, blast beats, high concepts and melodic guitar leads. But it goes right in line with what I said during my In Waves album review months ago: "This band always seems to be pushing the buttons of what the members are capable of," and "Trivium sometimes sound more progressive than the actual progressive metal bands like Dream Theater." This is the most fun I've had with a Trivium album since In Waves and everything that I enjoyed about that record is on display here with some new twists along the way.