Vengeance Falls

Florida’s Trivium is one of those rare rock bands which manages to provide mainstream metal which is still valued by many “purists” of the genre. Much of this popularity is likely based on their technically outstanding 2005 magnum opus Ascendancy, but nonetheless, their appeal has endured very well over the years.

Their most recent effort, Vengeance Falls, takes the more mainstream, accessible elements of their sound to extremes only fleetingly explored in the past (perhaps with the exception of 2006’s The Crusade), so the lifespan of the underground’s tolerance for the group remains to be seen. This change in sound can be – at least in part – attributed to Disturbed’s David Draiman, who has handled the album’s production duties. But is this shift for better, or for worse?

The first five tracks of Vengeance Falls are remarkably similar in terms of style. Big (if not overly exciting) riffs, slightly naff lyrics and Disturbed-style choruses abound. ‘No Way to Heal’ breaks the mould with some interesting guitar work, and ‘Strife’ provides the closest thing to a trademark Trivium vocal hook on the album, but overall, it’s pretty plain sailing through the opening salvo. ‘At the End of the War’ changes this, opening with an acoustic section before kicking into a promisingly energetic passage. This is vintage Trivium, even throwing a decent breakdown into the crescendo for good measure. ‘Through Blood and Dirt and Bone’ pulls the same trick, if slightly less successfully, while ‘Incineration’ proffers some of the album’s most effective riffage.

Vengeance Falls contains some great hard rock tunes, as well as a few interesting twists on a formula.

‘Wake (The End is Nigh)’ is clearly Metallica-influenced, though doesn’t suffer for it, employing some of the record’s few harsh vocal takes, and utilising them well. The next handful of songs are fairly generic slog-fests, before closer ‘Skulls… We Are 138’ allows the album one of its few genuine surprises. With very clear roots in punk, it harks back to some of the hardcore punk legends which provided much of the basis for the metalcore scene that Trivium emerged from during the mid-noughties.

Vengeance Falls reflects a band turning a new corner stylistically: though some sections of it feel fairly stale in comparison to the revolutionary offerings of Ascendancy, there are some great hard rock tunes on here, as well as a few interesting twists on a formula. Are Trivium softening up their sound to something a bit more stagnant? Perhaps. Will this put off some of their more elitist fans? Definitely. But even so – and cheesy lyrics aside – there’s plenty to like here.

Similar To: Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage

MP3: ‘At the End of the War’