Trivium

Emerging from Orlando, Florida, Trivium count among the most dynamic, energetic, and impactful acts to arise from the heavy metal surge that swept across the American South during the opening years of the twenty-first century. They launched as a metalcore unit yet have ceaselessly merged and blended approaches that encompass thrash, prog, technical, and melodic death metal alongside alternative and groove metal. Global recognition arrived for Trivium through persistent road work rather than shortcuts. After putting out an initial demo in 2000, the group maintained a nonstop touring schedule, first solidifying a following throughout the South, then throughout North America, and eventually headlining festival stages across Europe and Asia behind the 2005 release of their second album, Ascendancy. Shogun, issued in 2008, highlighted their skill for expansive narrative themes together with a passion for inventive guitar patterns. Those structural principles and narrative focus shaped every later record, beginning with In Waves in 2011. The Sin and the Sentence from 2017 placed those elements inside an extreme metal framework and ranked among their strongest-received albums, moving more copies in Europe than domestically. What the Dead Men Say in 2020 wove together every strand of their musical identity, while In the Court of the Dragon from 2021 took shape and was tracked amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Formed in 1999 in central Florida, Trivium rapidly generated local attention within Orlando’s metal scene through their fusion of metalcore, thrash, and progressive metal. After landing a deal with Germany’s Lifeforce label, the band issued its first full-length, Ember to Inferno, in October 2003 with vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy, drummer Travis Smith, and bassist Brent Young in the lineup. The album earned solid notices, prompting Trivium to move to Roadrunner Records for the follow-up. Ascendancy arrived in March 2005, by which time the roster had changed to feature Heafy, Smith, bassist Paolo Gregoletto, and guitarist Corey Beaulieu. The record received a May 2006 reissue that added four extra tracks and a bonus DVD. Trivium next performed in the U.K. at the June 2006 Download Festival, then played further European headline dates and joined America’s Sounds of the Underground package tour alongside As I Lay Dying, GWAR, Cannibal Corpse, and Terror.

Crusade surfaced that autumn and placed fresh weight on clean vocals, a departure from the screams and guttural growls Heafy had previously favored. Although the band defended Heafy’s vocal choices, Trivium encountered considerable backlash over the stylistic turn and therefore quickly reverted to a scream-heavy thrash approach on 2008’s Shogun. In 2010 the group confirmed that Nick Augusto would take over drums from the departing Smith. Later that year they entered the studio for their fifth album, In Waves, which surfaced in summer 2011 and reflected a bolder, more mature songwriting outlook. Sensing that the prior album’s creation had dragged on and yielded excess material, they chose to emphasize quality over volume during the touring-based writing for the next release. They enlisted Disturbed’s David Draiman as producer, and the veteran applied a direct, hands-on method that introduced a stronger melodic dimension. The resulting Vengeance Falls appeared in October 2013, drawing positive critical notices and charting strongly in the United States, the U.K., Japan, and Europe.

Trivium experienced another lineup shift when they parted ways with Augusto in May 2014; drum tech Matt Madiro stepped in. Late that year they began work on their seventh album with producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette and mixing engineer Josh Wilbur. The title track “Silence in the Snow” was released as a video single in July 2015, and the full album followed on Roadrunner in early October. Silence in the Snow became their first long-player to reach the Active Rock Top Ten and earned them headline slots at Europe’s Summerbreeze and Bloodstock festivals. After the album’s release Madiro exited and was replaced by Paul Wandtke, who departed after less than a year and was succeeded by Alex Bent. In late 2016 Trivium teamed with Cooking Vinyl to reissue Ember to Inferno in multiple editions. The two deluxe versions included the band’s earliest demos—“Ruber” (the Red Demo), “Caeruleus” (the Blue Demo), and “Flavus” (the Yellow Demo)—all captured when Heafy was sixteen or seventeen. Late 2017 brought the eighth studio album, The Sin and the Sentence, produced by Josh Wilbur and issued on Roadrunner; it reached number 23 on the Billboard 200 and topped the Hard Rock Albums chart. Following extensive touring and a subsequent break, the band returned to the studio with Wilbur in late 2019. In February 2020 the members began posting cryptic social-media messages to build anticipation for the next record, then further teased its arrival by placing two songs—“IX” and “Scattering the Ashes”—in the “Spawn” trailer for the Mortal Kombat video game that March.

Trivium released their ninth album, What the Dead Men Say, in April. Founding bassist Brent Young passed away on September 25, 2020, at age 37. Confined by COVID-19 quarantine measures, Trivium composed and recorded the Wilbur-produced In the Court of the Dragon in isolation; the album appeared in October 2021.