TRIVIUM: Shogun

Produced by Nick Raskulinecz

Released: Sept. 27, 2008

When looking at the meteoric rise of Trivium since the rather appropriately-titled Ascendence, it seems to me that the real secret behind the success of these metallic upstarts is that they are really good at keeping a lot of people fooled. They fooled the kids that they are a thrash band, fooled others that they were some fresh new force on the metal scene and now it seems they've fooled the critics that their latest expedition into shape-throwing is some kind of masterpiece. Maybe for Trivium it is, but Shogun didn't exactly leave me reeling in its wake.

After I flipped over the CD to see song titles like "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis", "He Who Spawned the Furies" and "Like Callisto to a Star in Heaven" I figured that maybe Matt Heafy had snuggled down with a copy of my favourite book, The Encyclopedia of Myths and Legends of All Nations or something similarly immersed in Classical mythology and decided that all this needed was a track called "The Seduction of Hylas" or something about Castor and Pollux and I'd have a massive erection. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and any excitement I may have had about what I was listening to faded before it arrived. Heafy's lyrics are actually pretty inspired on this and a lot of them do seem to draw analogies from mythology, but this is about the only real inspiration in evidence.

Admittedly, "Kirisute Gomen" gets the album underway with a rather decent little melodic opening before the band heads off into that strange place somewhere between thrash and metalcore that Trivium has designed for itself, and pretty much stays there for the rest of the album. I say "between thrash and metalcore" because while the production enhances the thrashier aspects of the guitars, anyone who's ever heard thrash drumming from guys like Hoglan, Bostaph or Tempesta knows that what Travis Smith does ain't it.

I read a few reviews before I started writing this, as I often do, and found some praise for the catchiness and quality of Heafy and Corey Beaulieu's riffing and while Shogun certainly has some good, hook-ridden riffs, it sounds like the same ones in every song. Indeed, "Kirisute Gomen" is like the template from which the whole album is cut. There are a few interesting moments, like the bass/guitar interplay towards the end of "Scylla and Carybdis" and "Insurrection" hints at the thrash band they really want to be. Too often, however, Trivium lose their way. "Down from the Sky" and "Into the Mouth of Hell" just go nowhere and almost every track seems to be longer than it should be. Finally, they go truly overboard with the title cut. On "Shogun", Trivium patch together heavy parts, melodic bits, clean sections and anything else they can think of in their quest to construct some kind of epic. But like latter-day Metallica, instead of each section moving cleanly into the next, it just sort of clunks into place and rings hollow.

Trivium are a pretty good bunch of musicians, especially the guitarists, but while it may be true that with Shogun they have come into a sound that's more their own, they aren't really the band they've been made out to be and this is really a less-than-spectacular effort.

1. Kirisute Gomen
2. Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis
3. Down From the Sky
4. Into the Mouth of Hell We March
5. Throes of Perdition
6. Insurrection
7. The Calamity
8. He Who Spawned the Furies
9. Of Prometheus and the Crucifix
10. Like Callisto to a Star in Heaven
11. Shogun

Rating: 55%