Trivium's 'What the Dead Men Say' Is An Enjoyable Listen That's A Small Step Down From Last Time

Looking back at the 9 album discography Trivium have given us, it’s very clear that the band has had quite a fluctuation in quality as well as a shifting spectrum between brutal Metalcore and Radio Rock with an edge. Their 2008 release Shogun is often heralded as the apex of their collective talents, a dizzying display of murderously empowered guitar riffs and vibrant songs that kept fans coming back for ages. Since then, they’ve slowly been drawn more and more towards the realm of radio ready choruses and clean vocals. In Waves and Vengeance Falls are both undeniably packed with highlights, but they also signify a bit of a downward slope that hit it’s bottom with 2015’s mediocre Silence in the Snow. While not an awful album, that one found the band at their most accessible and least intimidating. It was not only a shift in heaviness that disappointed a lot of the typical Metal fans who lose their minds at songs that aren’t heavy all the time, though. It was more so a lack of strong songwriting ideas that culminated in a sound that felt watered down and uninspired in places. However, they absolutely brought things back around with what many argue to be their best album to date The Sin and the Sentence. This 2017 offering was a return to form to the fullest extent, reminding everybody of how fantastic Trivium can be when they take their time and flex their muscles. That record combined all of the best aspects between the baand at their heaviest and their most melodic into a perfect storm of perfect songs that rekindled the fanbase just like Shogun did. Now that the album has had 3 years to cool off though, where does everything stand with their next release?

With the Trivium fanbase at their strongest right now with the band being in good standings with everybody and Matt Heafy garnering a huge online community with his awesome Twitch streams, this album was understandably super hyped up. With their last album being my personal favorite in the whole discography, I was also extremely excited. I stayed away from all the singles out of nervousness that they wouldn’t be what I wanted to hear though, and instead went into this completely blind. I didn’t expect this to be their magnum opus, but rather just another collection of songs that followed suit with the perfect formula we got with The Sin and the Sentence. Instead, I think this one is to that album what In Waves was to Shogun. They still have a lot of those core elements that made the last album so fantastic, but they just feel a bit more watered down with a huge focus on catchy hooks and clean vocals throughout the album. I’ve never been the kind of person that hates on a band for not being heavy enough, and I never will be. However, Trivium is a band that’s always been better when they make sure they have enough brutal breakdowns and killer screams to keep things rolling. I love when the band gives us some grand catchy melodic parts for sure, but their last record stood out in that department mostly because they reminded us how great they are at being heavy. This time around the instrumentation retains that heavy tone about it that fans loved so much, yet Matt’s vocals feel like they are stuck in the Silence in the Snow era far too often.

The real highlight of this record is the instrumentation and instrumental songwriting aspect of it, because in that regard this thing is a really strong and tight album that isn’t too far off their last. The guitar riffs throughout almost every song on this album are absolutely wild, even on the songs that I didn’t particularly care for. The title track is a great example of this, as the guitar work on that one has a super low and brooding tone about it that I can’t get enough of. The drumming from Alex Bent is once again a crucial part of the current Trivium formula that continues to prove why he is by far the best drummer Trivium has ever had or ever will have. Back in 2017 when the band first dropped a single with Alex behind the kit, I remember seeing every comment under the music video begging the band to never let go of the guy. He’s nothing short of a wizard with the sticks and he’s won over every member of the fanbase with his pounding fills and monstrous grooves. Seriously, just based off the two Trivium records he’s on he’s in my top 10 drummers of all time and he might just be my favorite member of the whole band at this point. I also really enjoyed the mixing on this record, mostly because it really lets the bass guitar shine on tracks like my personal favorite Amongst the Shadows and the Stones. That element really backs up how heavy the instrumentation feels in contrast to the vocals, bringing out the most pounding and rhythmic elements of the music to great effect. When the instrumentals are at full force, this album sounds nearly perfect in every way. It’s when they take a back seat to toothless choruses that just do not work as well as they have in the past that I start to lose interest.

Songs like Scattering the Ashes and the title track are great examples of my issues with this album. Both of them have magnificent instrumentation that makes them worth listening to all by itself, seriously killer stuff that no other band can do as well as Trivium can. However, Matt’s vocals are so disappointingly flat on these songs that it just makes me want to listen to their last album instead. The melodies that we heard on softer tracks like Other Worlds from the last album worked so well because those melodies felt inspired, the grooves felt tight and Matt sounded like he really cared. I would never accuse Matt Heafy of phoning it in because I know the guy is super genuine and cares about nothing more than what’s good for this band, but as much as it hurts to say he just doesn’t sound anywhere near as good as he did on that album. These softer and more melodic cuts on this album just lack that passionate songwriting when it comes to the melodic moments, and as a result it just makes me naturally gravitate toward the heavier sections. The breakdowns and guttural moments on this record are just performed so much better by Matt on here, so while I love a good soaring chorus I just can’t help but wish we got more screams and chugs in all honesty. They sound like they’ve run out of ideas for hooks going into this, and instead of being soaring pinnacles amidst a song the hook just feels like a slog that makes you wait for the good parts. The hook is supposed to be an incredible, triumphant moment and so many of them on this album just feel like chores.

I don’t want to sound like I completely hate this album, because that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Trivium still is, and always will be, one of my favorite bands in the Metalcore scene because they’ve proven time and time again that they’re one of the best to ever do it. This record is far from absent of that talent and killer passion, as there are quite a few songs that I actually really adore like the heaviest cut Amongst the Shadows and the Stones, as well as the single Catastrophist and the savage bass of Bleed Into Me. There are strong points on this album that I can’t get enough of, and even the weak points still have instrumentation so powerful and forceful that the band remains unparalleled in their genre. I don’t think there’s a single instrumental passage that I dislike on this album at all, and I would go as far as to say that there isn’t a single one that I would even alter in the slightest. Literally just give us some catchier hooks and heavier verses with a better ratio between the heavy and light parts, and every song on this album has the potential to be incredible. If they just nailed that balance like they did on the last record, this could have easily even outdone that one as my favorite Trivium record to date. It’s just quite disappointing to feel like it has the air let out of it half the time the band breaks into those radio ready choruses. If I was listening to Three Days Grace or Breaking Benjamin and they gave me the chorus we hear on The Defiant I would be nothing short of impressed, but I’m listening to Trivium. I’m listening to the band that gave us such bone-chillingly, beautifully chaotic songs like Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis and The Revanchist. I’m listening to a band that’s capable of more than what we were given here, but at the same time I won’t act like this doesn’t have a lot of elements worthy of praise that will keep me coming back to certain highlights on the record.

Part of me hates to be a little harsh on an album like this that is still leagues above what half the industry is dishing out, but Trivium have set their own standards and that is a very good thing. These guys are one of the most successful, revered and respected Metal bands that the 21st century has seen so far, and there are plenty of songs and moments on this album that withhold that impossible standard. However, there is also a lot of room for improvement and I would really like to see that improvement happen for the next release. I don’t want to see another gradual decline into more watered down territory like we saw with Silence in the Snow, and I feel like this album just could be the beginning of that. There is still a lot to love here, but there is also a lot that worries me considering it’s starting to lean in the same direction that In Waves did after the critical success of Shogun. We’ve seen this exact same pattern for the band before, and I really hope that they don’t go down another three album downward spiral again. I really want to see them either give us another crop of songs as strong and memorable as 2017’s album or seriously shake up everything it even means to be Trivium on their next release. I don’t want to see them predictably fall into the same pattern they did last time and wind up having people complaining that we don’t have “the old Trivium” anymore 5 years from now. What the Dead Men Say is a really enjoyable album that I hope every single Trivium fan gives plenty of proper spins, but it’s also a bit of a step down from their untouchable last album that leans into more accessible territory. There are plenty of awesome highlights, but the overall tone of the album is reminding me a bit of the direction they went in with In Waves that wound up giving us the career lowlight Silence in the Snow. This is a solid record, but I hope it doesn’t bring the band down that path again. - 7.6/10 (Best Songs - Amongst the Shadows and the Stones, Bleed Into Me, The Ones We Leave Behind)