Heafy on the new Trvium album.

[Summers]

'Ignition'

" 'Ignition' is an extremely thrashy track, it's got no bullshit! The vocals come in almost immediately, which is quite unusual for Trivium. The rhythm's really fucking fast."

'Detonation'

" 'Detonation' is part two of 'Ignition', lyrically. In a way you can think of it as a three-piece song, like an opera, I guess. It's got the slow, heavy shit which is like the first movement. The second movement is fast and chaotic and the third movement is more chilled out and melodic.

'Enter the Conflagration'

"This song as a long song title! It's another really fucking thrashy one. The chorus is extremely catchy again and it reminds me of Megadeth's 'Countdown To Extinction.'"

'Unrepentant'

" 'Unrepentant' is one of Corey's [beaulieu, guitar] songs. All of his songs remind me of old school Annihilator or old school Megadeth. They're very 'notey' and it was really hard for me to learn how to play this one. Corey can do a lot of straight down-picking like Hetfield, so this is a very busy song and it's got a nice solo section. I did all the Lyrics again, though, on this record."

'Anthem (We Are The Fire)'

" 'Anthem' is a track on which Paolo [Gregoletto, bass] laid down a really fucking sleazy pre-chorus. He's been the master of the sleazy riffs on this album! Think of Motley Crue, Skid Row, and Dio! It's fucking rad!"

"And Sadness Will Sear"

" This song is one of mine. I was thinking new-school Rammstein when I wrote it. It's written on a seven-string and it's slow, minimalistic and very heavy. The verses have no guitar but just a melody thing with the bass and drums. Lyrically, it's a song dedicated to and about Matthew Shepard who was a gay kid who was hunted down in Wyoming in 1998 and beaten almost to death and left to die. It's a very emotional song and it's very heavy and dark. It's got a depressing feel but I wanted to do it because I don't think many people know the story"

"Becoming The Dragon"

" 'Becoming the Dragon' is a title I got from a book that I really liked. It's a little groovier and is a head-banging, fist-pumping kind a song. It's a realy most song. Then, right in the middle, I really use the seven-string and it goes into a very Dream Theatre-type part, then a death-metal part and just a world of technical shit!"

'To The Rats'

" 'To the Rats' is a Paolo song, It's one of the fastest thrash-metal songs we have. It's fucking balls-out thrash"

'This World Can't Tear Us Apart'

" 'This World Can't Tear Us Apart' is basically this album's 'Dying In Your Arms'. Whereas that song was about relationships and being good, about making your life better and taking a glimpse of the life that used to be. It's another rock song."

"Tread The Floods"

" This has a very technical riff. It actually took me a really long time to learn this riff and it's all over the place! But the chorus ended up sounding like a Guns N'Roses song that never was!"

'Contempt Breeds Contamination'

" This one is recorded on a seven-string guitar in a different turning. It starts off with a really technical death-metal riff, not new-school death metal but a Cynic or Atheist style death-metal. It's really fast and really thrashy but it's got a really catchy chorus. It almost sounds like a radio-rock but in a good way."

"The Rising"

"This was also written by Paolo. I don't even know how to describe it. It's a style I've never heard before. He played it for all of us and we were like, 'Is this a cover?'. It sounds like something Def Leppard might have done. It sounds sleazy and dirty but catchy, anthemic, and gigantic too. It's fucking awesome!

"The Crusade"

" 'The Crusade' is an eight minute instrumental. It's very, very skilled and it's got some odd time signatures. It's really fucking good. We were thinking of "Orion' when we wrote it. It doesn't sound like it but we wanted a long instrumental track that really makes people think."

I'm excited, personally.

[YI]

If you didn't already know, it's leaked.

It's alright. That's pretty much my first impression. I'm not a big Trivium fan, and this does nothing to change my mind. I much prefered the last album off of the first listen.

There's some really sweet bits. But they seemingly seem hung up on wanting to sound like other bands. The times I thought to myself, "Poor man's Metallica" was quite a lot indeed.

Edited September 16, 2006 by Mr. Kurt McKenna

[Summers]

I know it's leaked, I've just not made the effort to download it yet.

[livid]

Meh, my Trivium shipped has passed. Something about the band just doesn't really click with me. That being said, I did get the album, it's just on my laptop and I haven't listened to it yet.

[Nerf]

The Anthem is fucking shit.

[fineintent]

I love how he has to credit other bands when describing their own music - bland as fuck IMO.

[gunnar hendershow]

It pretty much sounds like more material from Ride the Lightning era Metallica.

Which is both awesome and lame at the same time. Lame because Trivium have no originality. Awesome because... well... Metallica.

[Cactus Drags]

That article was in Kerrang weeks ago, and reading through I kept thinking "uh-oh" because he describes every song by referencing another band. There's nought wrong with wearing your influences on your sleeve, but there comes a point when you just need to be your own band. I like Detonation though, and I'm not writing them off before I've heard the album (which I am looking forward to).

I'm really not sure on The Anthem though. It's ever so cliché, and the whoa-oh whoah bit is cringe-worthy (then again, most songs that artists themselves dub "The Anthem" tend to be"). I think it's the combination of song and that so so overdone concept for the video that's turned me off it.

[Skummy]

Ugh, and my hatred for Trivium increases, as much as I never thought that possible. The vocals are mastered to try and make him sound more like Hetfield, which is just dreadful. Derivative shite? Even moreso than usual? Thanks Heafy.

Ugh. I hate Matt Heafy, I hate Trivium. I hate him even more after having heard this, but I hate him most after having seen an interview with him on Redemption TV, where they asked him who he'd want to be in a band with, alive or dead, and he said Dimebag. No one would have answered Dimebag if he was still alive. He was just looking for the musical equivalent of a cheap pop, just like everyone else who played Download that name-checked Dimebag to get a quick cheer when the crowd otherwise couldn't give a fuck. Talentless, unimaginative cunts, the lot of them.

[sirdavinator]

The album's okay. But it's no classic like Ascendancy was. There are good songs, but no great ones, besides probably Ignition, which I like. The Anthem is shite, and This World Can't Tear us Apart really is this album's Dying In Your Arms. Just listen to it. The rest of the songs are meh.

This album sucks shit compared to Ascendancy, but is good in its own right.

Edited September 17, 2006 by sirdavinator

[fineintent]

I'd hardly describe their first as a classic. I don't think anyone can truely call it that.

[livid]

I'd hardly describe their first as a classic. I don't think anyone can truely call it that.

[Skummy]

He did say members of Metallica as well, but I'm CONVINCED that no one would have said Dimebag Darrell if he was still alive. The whole posthumous glorification of him is just ridiculous, he was an average, good at best, guitarist who's treated like some kind of untouchable God just because he's dead. Fuck that.

And that's not why I hate Heafy, it was just an example of his trendwhoring, heavy metal wannabe bullshit. He's just like every whiny heavy metal kid who starts up a band playing derivivative thrash in high school, only he's got famous out of it for some unfathomable reason. Trivium, and Heafy, sum up everything wrong with heavy metal, both as a genre, and as a lifestyle choice. Not to mention that they've categorically ripped off countless underground metal bands, made it more palatable, and made money off it. There isn't a drop of originality in a damn thing they've done.

And how anyone can take "The Anthem" seriously is beyond me. It's fucking laughable, and would be even without Heafy's mastered-to-high-heaven vocals, and Hetfield "OOOH~!s" and "YEAHHH~!s".

He's a "good" guitarist, sure. But "good" metal guitarists are two-a-penny. I could walk into a high school music room and find a guitarist playing crap thrash metal just as well as Heafy does.

It saddens me that there are so many fantastic heavy metal bands out there, yet this bunch of wankers are the ones to get famous of it, and all because 90% of heavy metal fans don't want to hear anything different, or to open their mind. They want to hear what they're familiar with, and that's old Metallica riffs and bad thrash, which Trivium serve up by the bucketload.

Oh, and what's that? You can get the lucrative angsty teenage girl market by playing vaguely heavy rock and having a nice haircut? Heafy, get yourself to the barbers like a good little trendwhore now.

[Nerf]

Trivium are very hit and miss for me, but it's usually hit. Matt, though, does tend to piss me off a lot. Cory on the other hand, seem awesome enough.

[gunnar hendershow]

He did say members of Metallica as well, but I'm CONVINCED that no one would have said Dimebag Darrell if he was still alive. The whole posthumous glorification of him is just ridiculous, he was an average, good at best, guitarist who's treated like some kind of untouchable God just because he's dead. Fuck that.

3 years ago I would've disagreed with this, and I still do. Dimebag is one of the best American metal guitarists ever.

[Nerf]

He's not one of the best. He's great, but not one of the best. His reputation exceeded after he died, and he probably wasn't deserving of it. Sure, he was fucking awesome, but he never warranted the attention he got after he died.

[Crybaby Bunting]

He was part of a big metal band that got big, if the guitarist from Anthrax got shot tomorrow he'd be glorified as some great big rock-star for playing some classics. Hell I could replace Anthrax with any other 90s metal band: Slayer, Megadeth, Guns N' Roses and you'd get the same reaction (although GNR is probably an overstatement)

Point is: Guitarists come and go, if you think that someone who died last week was the greatest in the world then you've got another thing coming. For every big star that is made, there are at least 3 others that are just as good but haven't got into the spotlight. If Heafy had mentioned an underground artist then it would have helped at least one party, instead of glorifying some poor sod who died.

[K]

I haven't heard anything from this album, other than the stuff I watched them play live. I'm looking forward to it. Disapointed there's no screaming, but open minded.

[Nerf]

He was part of a big metal band that got big, if the guitarist from Anthrax got shot tomorrow he'd be glorified as some great big rock-star for playing some classics. Hell I could replace Anthrax with any other 90s metal band: Slayer, Megadeth, Guns N' Roses and you'd get the same reaction (although GNR is probably an overstatement)

Point is: Guitarists come and go, if you think that someone who died last week was the greatest in the world then you've got another thing coming. For every big star that is made, there are at least 3 others that are just as good but haven't got into the spotlight. If Heafy had mentioned an underground artist then it would have helped at least one party, instead of glorifying some poor sod who died.

[Cactus Drags]

He did say members of Metallica as well, but I'm CONVINCED that no one would have said Dimebag Darrell if he was still alive. The whole posthumous glorification of him is just ridiculous, he was an average, good at best, guitarist who's treated like some kind of untouchable God just because he's dead. Fuck that.

And that's not why I hate Heafy, it was just an example of his trendwhoring, heavy metal wannabe bullshit. He's just like every whiny heavy metal kid who starts up a band playing derivivative thrash in high school, only he's got famous out of it for some unfathomable reason. Trivium, and Heafy, sum up everything wrong with heavy metal, both as a genre, and as a lifestyle choice. Not to mention that they've categorically ripped off countless underground metal bands, made it more palatable, and made money off it. There isn't a drop of originality in a damn thing they've done.

And how anyone can take "The Anthem" seriously is beyond me. It's fucking laughable, and would be even without Heafy's mastered-to-high-heaven vocals, and Hetfield "OOOH~!s" and "YEAHHH~!s".

He's a "good" guitarist, sure. But "good" metal guitarists are two-a-penny. I could walk into a high school music room and find a guitarist playing crap thrash metal just as well as Heafy does.

It saddens me that there are so many fantastic heavy metal bands out there, yet this bunch of wankers are the ones to get famous of it, and all because 90% of heavy metal fans don't want to hear anything different, or to open their mind. They want to hear what they're familiar with, and that's old Metallica riffs and bad thrash, which Trivium serve up by the bucketload.

Oh, and what's that? You can get the lucrative angsty teenage girl market by playing vaguely heavy rock and having a nice haircut? Heafy, get yourself to the barbers like a good little trendwhore now.