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Rating: You are the passenger. At the wheel is an inexperienced young man. He's going full speed. He drives decently, makes you feel the adrenaline, occasionally swerves a bit. With each swerve you feel like throwing up. But deep down, you're having fun. Trivium is back at the wheel after two years, offering the masses their fourth album: eleven tracks, sixty-six minutes of melody. Matt Heafy brings back the screaming, almost entirely absent on their previous CD, making this "Shogun" more varied. Play: the first few seconds of the album are an acoustic call-back to the refrain of the last track, after which I listen to "Kirisute gomen," a hit. I notice numerous hits among the eleven tracks in question: the songwriting is, now more than ever, geared towards airplay. Other hits sure to succeed are numbers three, four, and seven: tracks with immediate impact, made of simple riffs, irresistible (odious?) choruses, and short lifespan. "Shogun," the final track, is a suite, a novelty for this band. The first four minutes flow like any other track, then they settle into delicate arpeggios and low-tone singing*, gradually increasing in intensity, until it returns to the refrain, in my opinion, the best of the album. "Stride" more than in other works the classic combination of the screaming, never as guttural as in certain moments of this album, with the cold singing full of trendy melodies. Nevertheless, I note an increased experience in songwriting: it's a "squeak" that sounds better. These young men have been clever; they've designed a larger puzzle. So the listener, when taking an overall look, has a harder time seeing the joints between the pieces. Boldness: Matt Heafy plays with fire. He borrows riffs from extreme metal and elaborates cool melodies, sometimes inspiring, sometimes nauseating. Is the result? At least interesting. I don't want to admit it, not even to myself. I don't let myself relax, I don't trust the little thug at the wheel who thinks he's a pilot. However, he does know what he's doing. If only I could sit more relaxed in the seat! Given the crazy speed, the adrenaline would rise. Without prejudice, nor memories of the past, it would be fun. Good: I want to go for another ride. *The timbre of the aforementioned low tone closely reminds me of a singer from another band when he also uses that tone in certain songs (see The Unforgiven 2). The similarity is so striking that I went to check the booklet for any special guests.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Kirisute Gomen (06:27)
He who walks the fire breathes
He who walks the fire breathes
Unlike the rest
Living by the bloody creed
Kirisute gomen
Air of battle tasting stale
Reeks of deceit
Send the bitter straight to hell
Kirisute gomen
In their wretched guts all they want is to feed
Unending covetous hunger known as greed
As the last legion makes it's way to the skies
I can see in their eyes
They've already died
Inside, but as for the outside
I'll take their fucking heads
Quake has bred with the storm
Conceiving war
Wicked stampeding hordes
Kirisute gomen
In their wretched guts all they want is to feed
Unending covetous hunger known as greed
As the last legion makes it's way to the skies
I can see in their eyes
They've already died
Inside, but as for the outside
I'll take their fucking heads (x2)
Chorus:
I will never be what they
Want me to
I live by my own path in life
No turning back now
I won't be held down
Forced into a shallow grave built upon their empty ways
There's no turning back
There's hell to pay
such disarray
A bloodied mess
flesh masquerade
With all the blood making a flood
You made your path by crossing us
He who spits the fire seethes
All he detests
Decapitating
bloody creed
Kirisute gomen
In their wretched guts all they want is to feed
Unending covetous hunger known as greed
As the last legion makes it's way to the skies
I can see in their eyes
They've already died
Inside, but as for the outside
I'll take their fucking heads (x2)
Chorus
I will never be what they
Want me to
I live by my own path in life
There's no turning back
05 Throes of Perdition (05:54)
Blind-folded and gagged, stood waiting
With the whole world: my firing squad
At the edge of the world I'm faced out
Staring the sun right in the eye
Vultures circle above, hyenas mocking the kill
Excrement drooling down their chins
Atop the cliffs I look down, into the starving Hell-mouth
The rabid foam crashes hard on its teeth
Their mouth's salivate
Fantasizing my gruesome ending
This world looks down upon
A man who can stand on his own two feet
As they're feeding their guns: "ready, aim"
They say I'll live, if I die for their cause
Living under the rule of fellow Cro-Magnon fool
They fear who leads and will kill to stay still
Their mouth's salivate
Fantasizing my gruesome ending
This world looks down upon
A man who can stand on his own two feet
Without eating from their claws
Life feels like Hell should
But this Hell’s so cold
Pull another knife out
Stick it with the rest of them
When my back is full
Turn me around to face it
Such melancholy, burning the stars from skies
As we melt, drowning inside their bloodied eyes
Hope is ravaged, running from lacerations
Sob so heavily, we choke, then we die
Die!
Die!
Life feels like Hell should
But this Hell’s so cold
Pull another knife out
Stick it with the rest of them
When my back is full
Turn me around to face it
GO!
Sob so heavily, we choke, then we die!
11 Shogun (11:54)
Won't walk the Earth a specter
Won't hold my tongue from lashing out
This is my writ of honor
Drawn by the blood that I have shed
The beasts will soon assemble
Conjoining in their putrid flesh
Their hearts don't beat desire
They pump violence and poison
Flesh opens up, blood's retreating
Flesh opens up, blood's retreating
Death's embracing, all is ending
Death's embracing, all is ending
Time will not heal all of your pain
I cannot wait for it all to come crashing
Down
The monsters walk among us
Leeching the blood out from what's good
Infecting at transmission
Swallowing innocence from life
Our time has come to stand forth
The wretched womb from which they feed
Behold the loathsome demons
Send them into the hell they made
Flesh opens up, blood's retreating
Flesh opens up, blood's retreating
Death's embracing, all is ending
Death's embracing, all is ending
Time will not heal all of your pain
I cannot wait for it all to come crashing
Down on your face, ripping your veins out
Your insides win and kill you from within
And the seas will rise as serpents
Spawned from the mouth of Earth's surface
Soon the skies will fall fast, burning
Open wide and eat the suffering
The pulse is now quickening
Softly, it's painstaking
Look within to calm the storm
Raging inside the form
There's no turning back
For I'm witness to the changing
Take all you have brought to sacrifice
For you will lose much more
If you succeed in this battle
You still will lose so much more
The pulse is now quickening
Softly, it's painstaking
Look within to calm the storm
Raging inside the form
There's no turning back
For I'm witness to the changing
Take all you have brought to sacrifice
For you will lose much more
If you succeed in this battle
You still will lose so much more
4x
Time has come to face all evil
Now the seas rise up as serpents
Spawned from the mouth of Earth's surface
As the skies now fall fast burning
Open wide and face the suffering
The inferno spews out hell's horde
Casting the flames upon our world
As death eclipses all the light
We make our last stand, 'til death: fight
Time will not heal all of your pain
I cannot wait for it all to come crashing
Down!
Time will not heal all of your pain
I cannot wait for it all to come crashing
Down on your face, ripping your veins out
Your insides win and kill you from within
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Other reviews
By Hell
Heafy’s voice is one of the most fake I’ve ever heard, as it does nothing but forcibly imitate the old-school Hetfield.
Trivium want to become something much bigger than themselves, but they play with a wrong approach bordering on presumptuous.
By Crimson87
"This album is a watershed in Trivium’s career, standing at a crossroads between metal fame or fleeting imitation."
“The 11-minute title track ‘Shogun’ reaches levels of epicness never seen in previous works.”
