Shadowdoom9 (Andi)'s Reviews
Practically every Trivium fan says that Ascendancy is their favorite album, and I somewhat agree. Ascendancy is an awesome album, but it's not my ultimate favorite one from Trivium. This is my second favorite album (In Waves is still my #1)! While Ascendancy is the band's second album, it is their first one with the legendary Roadrunner Records.
These guys once again show their stunning talent in this astonishing masterpiece that reaches higher levels than they ever thought possible. I can totally understand how successful and brilliant this album is, noticing some of the biggest highlights of the band's career. They really know how to kick their modern metalcore music into high gear.
Once again starting the album with a short intro, “The End of Everything” is a beautiful start-off with subtle keyboards and acoustic guitar parts. Then the first actual song “Rain” kicks off the metal action in a vicious bang, setting a feverish pace maintained throughout this album. Next is “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr,” one of Trivium's most popular songs, displaying their diversity. It’s loaded with as much brutality and speed as melody. "Drowned And Torn Asunder" is another diverse song mixing huge harmonies and sheer melodies with out-of-control tempos and ripping guitar work.
The title track delivers a healthy dose of melodic death metal influence of early In Flames material with an unbreakable combination of masterful guitar work and melodic overtones. The solo displays a good heap of technicality. "A Gunshot To The Head Of Trepidation" unleashes a pummeling double bass drum rhythm leading into a ferocious verse and a pre-chorus decimating break.
“Like Light to the Flies” is yet another classic, and one of my personal favorite songs in the album, once again showing how good this band can possibly be. I wish I have my own iPod so I can listen to this song anytime, anywhere. “Dying In Your Arms” is a slower, shorter, catcher, and more harmonious song, but still as powerful as they’ve made. It should please a wide variety of people, whether or not they're metalheads. This song is followed by “The Deceived,” another work of art with pace and overall tone that can make you stand back in awe.
"Suffocating Sight" once again contains tight riffs and a venomous combination of abrasive growls and harmonizing clean vocals. Then it carries the tune to another level before closing things off. ‘Departure’ shows some good texture, great backing vocals in the chorus, and a brutal crescendo. This track would come off well as a radio single if it didn't include that much chaos.
The epic of this record is ‘Declaration’, the album’s 7-minute final track. Intense harmonies, lightning-fast beats and solid grooves mingle together to form a driving wall of sound, basically everything metal fans can surely enjoy. The vocals range from deep growls to higher clean vocals that will strike through the heart of any metal listener.
This album establishes Trivium as one of the best modern metal bands in the world, and has elevated them to gigantic heights and greater fame. It had made them get bigger than ever before. If there are any metalheads that don't have this album in their collection, they really should. This may be considered the perfect Trivium album, but in my opinion, the only album to top it off is In Waves, yet another album to talk about in a later review. But still, congrats to Trivium for Ascendancy being a complete success!
Favorites: Rain, Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr, Ascendancy, Like Light to the Flies, The Deceived, Departure, Declaration
OK, so this is my first real review for a metal album. I just came to this website to help it grow by adding suggestions in the forums, but when I was asked if I was planning on adding some ratings and reviews, I thought "Eh, why not?" So here I am, all prepared for a journey through writing metal reviews!
Anyway, Trivium is one of my favorite bands, and the first band I started listening to in my new modern heavy metal taste. I would consider them one of the most amazing modern melodic metalcore bands out there! Their first album Ember to Inferno does not totally meet the higher standards of their later albums, but it is still made really well with their usual heavy metalcore, intense melodies, and a bit of their mainstream sound that would propel the band into fame with their next album.
The intro "Inception: the Bleeding Skies" begins the album on a hauntingly melodic note that is actually the outro "A View of Burning Empires" partly played backwards. Then it transits to “Pillars of Serpents”, a chugging churning example of heavy metalcore, still audible enough for the ears. In fact you can hear a bit of the bass clearly in the mix. I personally like the original better than the 2017/2019 re-recorded version, not sure why, maybe I just wasn't into the scream and the F-word at the end of the re-recording.
Trivium’s originally drummer is more intense than his later work. His intensely fast drumming doesn’t break through any walls, but still adds a lot of sound. However, there's a lack of bass in the mix, and the drums are pushed back to make way for the electric and bass guitars, but songs “If I Could Collapse the Masses” and “Fugue” still unleash a good amount of drumming wrath.
Speaking of "Fugue", the interesting lyrics about the apocalypse and metaphysical negation are well written in this song along with “Requiem” and “Ember to Inferno". Those songs sound very upbeat for lyrics of pain, suffering, and disappointment. Listen to the chorus of “Fugue”: “As this dream comes to its grim end, Blind pray to god to make them men, As all hopes crumble truths unveiled, The world we know now abysmal hell” See? Sounds beautiful at the same time obviously not so hopeful. Now about the vocalist, he really bolted through the album with his great mix of growls and clean vocals. And he was only 17! Man, I need to improve my own vocals.
Once again talking about the title track, during the song they unleash their upbeat yet heavy metalcore guitar riffs, similar to Shadows Fall, that not only sound good but keep the listener going through the music, not just the lyrics, including its incredible lightning-fast solo. You can expect more guitar soloing chaos in “To Burn the Eye”, once again demonstrating the abilities of the guitarists without the solo being too lengthy. Before "To Burn the Eye" is the under one-minute intro “Ashes”, which has an audible but creepy guitar sound to it that sounds like a macabre horror circus. "Falling To Grey" opens with a nice neo-classical solo. The song seems to offer more emotion and dexterity, but it is still not exactly a classic. In “My Hatred” and “When All Light Dies”, the guitars are a neat backup for the intensity of the lyrics and vocals. The guitars range from the higher notes in the solos to the lower sinister death metal-like riffs, still melodic sounding but really matches the heavy direction.
Still discussing “When All Light Dies”, the song has one of very few metalcore breakdowns in the album, whereas the solo is as sparse as the other songs in the album, with a good amount of intense technicality. And finally, the aforementioned outro of the album, "A View of Burning Empires", seguing from the fascinating outro of "When All Light Dies", is a peaceful uplifting way to end the album with classical guitars, keyboards, and acoustic guitars coming into play here.
All in all, Trivium did really well and had a lot of passion and strength in their first attempt to create their own album. This is a good album but not reaching their heights as high as the rest of the band's discography, except for the thrashy but less aggressive-sounding The Crusade and the classic heavy metal album Silence in the Snow, but those are another story....
Favorites: Pillars of Serpents, Fugue, Requiem, Ember to Inferno, To Burn the Eye, Falling to Grey, When All Light Dies