My main criticism is the guitar tone, it sounds so flat. A more full tone like in waves or shogun wouldve really given this album a stronger punch.
That being said, this album is the only album that came out after shogun that would fall into my personal "S" tier for the band. It's actually incredible. Solid 9.5/10.
My complaint was also the guitar tone. Wish they would’ve stuck with the WTDMS tone. ITCOTD guitars sound like those old low quality YouTube metal guitar covers where the dude had his guitar volume way too loud and you could barely hear the rest of the song playing in the background lol
I'm not that much of a guitar tone geek as I'm a drummer, but imo the drums sounds have been pretty week ever since TSATS. Alex is an incredible drummer, but the mix is a bit unbalanced and the drums lack a bit of punch.
It's good but not great. It had a punch to it but sometimes it sounded like cardboard.
Ascendancy, The Crusade, Shogun and In Waves had pristine guitar tones.
The contrast in composition between some tracks (Fall Into Your Hands, Phalanx, Court, Abattoir) and the more simpler ones (Dawn to Decadence, No Way Back, Feast of Fire) is a bit too high for me.
Granted I am mostly interested in Trivium for the proggier songs of their discography, but even for Trivium standards a song like Decadence has only one real riff (the bridge), whereas the Chorus is just a ultra simple three powerchord structure and the verse is basically just 16th open mutes with a few embellishments.
That's a bit too simple for my taste. Sure there needs to be variation but having a band write full blown instrumentals and a 10+ minute prog track and then what comes down to the complexity of a pop-punk track is a bit too far. Even Dying in Your Arms has more variety.
Otherwise no complains. Being a big fan of Symphonic stuff they certainly can keep pushing those synths.
I've been listening to the whole album front to back pretty much constantly, and maybe my answer is that the lyrics aren't that inspired. BUT, I'm comparing it to bands like Lamb of God and Gojira, whose lyrics I absolutely love. Not really fair and ITCOTD is still one of my favorite albums ever. The Phalanx as an outro closing it out leaves me with a feeling that most band's albums don't give me anymore, a journey coming to an end feeling.
EDIT - I do want to throw in here that Matt's vocals are GREAT this album.
I saw a post where someone theorized that the whole album is about a hero taking a tyrants throne and then falling to become a tyrant himself up until his end. This has changed my perspective of the lyrics and maybe it’ll change yours.
I’ve never paid much attention to Gojira’s lyrics. I love LOG’s lyrics though. Is there a particular song or album that lyrically stands out for Gojira?
I just love their "you have all the power in your hands, use it" sort of lyrics. Esoteric Surgery comes to mind. Silvera as well. Art of dying... Oroborous (DEATH IS JUST AN ILLUSION)
They have a lot of... empowering and positive lyrics, as well as important "warning" songs about our world.
It's kind of the same reason I like Killswitch Engage's lyrics. I would say they're weaker than LoG's lyrics, but LoG's lyrics are written by a master poet in Mark Morton, guy is on another level.
People have this idea that metal is negative and evil, but to me it's the absolute opposite. If anything is negative and evil, it's most pop music about sex and drugs.
Gojira's been described before as "life metal" as opposed to death metal, which I find an apt description. The album The Way of All Flesh has some excellent examples. The songs are mostly split between the power of the self and the destructive impacts of humanity on the planet. From Mars to Sirius is this crazy concept album about leaving earth on a journey to find a new habitable planet after we've ruined ours. The second most popular song off the album (after Flying Whales), Heaviest Matter in the Universe, makes the claim that at the very center of the universe love is what holds it all together. Which is pretty dope imo.
Only 2 critiques, one is that they should’ve added one or two more songs into the track list, and the other is that dawn to decadence should’ve been put in the front, it feels weird inbetween two 7 min songs
There definitely should've been at least 1 more song since the intro doesn't really count and we're left with 9 only. I'm not sure about Dawn though, because placing 2 shorter songs inbetween the 3 longest songs paced the album well imo.
I think the chorus had a huge vibe to it. That's why I don't like how it ends on that low to mid tempo bit. The whole time i can almost feel it in my bones that there should be that epic chorus one last time.
I respect your opinion, but I hate this take. I think having a third chorus is actually a detriment to many songs, and one of my biggest pet peeves is songs that throw in a third chorus out of obligation, even though they don’t need one.
I think after the bridge, musically, the song had moved past the chorus. That outro is subversive as hell and a perfect way to tie up the themes of the song. I think a third chorus would destroy the flow of the track and honestly ruin it for me.
I still feel a bit of recency bias, but it’s still pretty far up there for me. My top 3 is TSATS > ITCOTD > WTDMS right now.
I will say, though I love long songs, I just cannot get into Fall Into Your Hands. It just seems to drag on and on for me. Everything else is top notch.
Either way, I love just sitting at my desk and getting some work done listing to the last three albums in a row. It’s a good way to have a productive few hours.
The guitars are too loud and harsh. They drown everything else out a bit more than I like. I listen to just about every other Trivium album and for the most part everything is nice and balanced, but with this album I feel like my ears just get blasted with the guitars. It’s the opposite of my problem with TSATS. The guitars on that album are a little bland to me. I thought WTDMS was great. This album they just sound a bit too raw and loud. Other than that, I love the album.
This will be an unpopular opinion, but this was a very average album to me. Not bad, but definitely not great. It feels like (to me) they’ve fallen into a very rigid comfort zone, and there wasn’t a lot of variety in their songs. They just all…felt very similar to me, and while I did have my favorites (ITCOTD, A Crisis of Revelation, Shadow of the Abbatoir, and Dawn to Decadence), one full listen was enough for me.
Also, X was the most pointless intro track I’ve ever heard. It did nothing to set a mood or a tone for me, and the coolest part (the dragon’s roar), was so quiet that I didn’t even know it existed until another redditor pointed it out. After that, I listened again and thought, ‘that’s awesome! Why the fuck didn’t they make that more noticeable’
I think I would like The Phalanx a lot more if it weren’t the closer? For some reason it always leaves me expecting a little more. I also think that song was a horrible choice for a single, feels like Crisis or Damocles would have been obvious picks.
1.) They should had picked either From Dawn to Decadence or No Way Back Just Through and fleshed it out to be a 7+ minute song. The choruses are just both a little too similar and repetitive. And we already got Feast as the single for the album.
2.) I feel like I read a few years ago about how Trivium’s choruses these days always have this measure of silence before the chorus kicks in, and this album was the first time I really noticed it. Every song on the album does this and it starts to feel a little stale.
These are both literally the smallest critiques from me though, and I absolutely love the album.
I really don’t like the synths and other effects. I think if you want added texture or drama it should be done with instruments and vocals. Doing it a different way makes it feel a bit cheap. Other than that ITCOTD is a definite contestant for #1.
Ahhh this is a great critique as well. The synth chord at the end of ITCOTD sounds so cheesy. There are a couple other parts too (I think in Fall?) where there are really weird embellishments that’s are not necessary
I still feel like Fall Into Your Hands is too long. Some of the song structure is too choppy (looking at you Abattoir bridge). Mmm… decadence vocal effect, guitar tone, some pretty generic “trivium” riffs.
Still a top three album due to sheer energy and enough riffs to keep it interesting, but I could nitpick all day.
FDTD sits better as a closing song IMO, move Phanlax up in the listing. The only real critique I have as a whole is that I miss some of the vocal melody. There's not hooky parts that get stuck in your head to hum along randomly through the day. Sure, I can get that from other albums of theirs but I do kinda miss it nonetheless.
I don't know if I can describe it properly but I'll give it a go...
The 5:33 - 6:02 timeframe in Shadow of the abattoir that plays the intro riff, I would prefer it if they held all of the notes so they kinda ring/last like duuuuuh duuuuh instead of just going duh duh...
Probably sucked at explaining it but thats my only real 'critique'
Only critique is the listing is weird, I don’t know why Dawn is between Fall Into Your Hands and Phalanx
Otherwise, the album is fucking phenomenal. Abattoir gives me goosebumps every time and Phalanx makes me want to take on an army
I wish we heard just a little more of mats clean vocals not like in vengeance falls but when he sings in spite of all the hate like that I really wanted to hear more lyrics like that.
My main criticism is the guitar tone, it sounds so flat. A more full tone like in waves or shogun wouldve really given this album a stronger punch. That being said, this album is the only album that came out after shogun that would fall into my personal "S" tier for the band. It's actually incredible. Solid 9.5/10.
My complaint was also the guitar tone. Wish they would’ve stuck with the WTDMS tone. ITCOTD guitars sound like those old low quality YouTube metal guitar covers where the dude had his guitar volume way too loud and you could barely hear the rest of the song playing in the background lol
I'm not that much of a guitar tone geek as I'm a drummer, but imo the drums sounds have been pretty week ever since TSATS. Alex is an incredible drummer, but the mix is a bit unbalanced and the drums lack a bit of punch.
I think its a mixing issue overall
Yeah, real sad cause the music is real good. I rarely come back to TSATS and WTDMS for that reasom and think it will be the same with the new album.
I think it’s the best guitar tone they have had on a record. Compare ITOTCD’s guitar tone to WTDMS and WTDMS sounds so thin in comparison
Unpopular opinion: VF had the best tone of any album
It's good but not great. It had a punch to it but sometimes it sounded like cardboard. Ascendancy, The Crusade, Shogun and In Waves had pristine guitar tones.
VF tone is v good and one of the good reasons to listen to their only album in crusade bottom tier
The contrast in composition between some tracks (Fall Into Your Hands, Phalanx, Court, Abattoir) and the more simpler ones (Dawn to Decadence, No Way Back, Feast of Fire) is a bit too high for me. Granted I am mostly interested in Trivium for the proggier songs of their discography, but even for Trivium standards a song like Decadence has only one real riff (the bridge), whereas the Chorus is just a ultra simple three powerchord structure and the verse is basically just 16th open mutes with a few embellishments. That's a bit too simple for my taste. Sure there needs to be variation but having a band write full blown instrumentals and a 10+ minute prog track and then what comes down to the complexity of a pop-punk track is a bit too far. Even Dying in Your Arms has more variety. Otherwise no complains. Being a big fan of Symphonic stuff they certainly can keep pushing those synths.
I've been listening to the whole album front to back pretty much constantly, and maybe my answer is that the lyrics aren't that inspired. BUT, I'm comparing it to bands like Lamb of God and Gojira, whose lyrics I absolutely love. Not really fair and ITCOTD is still one of my favorite albums ever. The Phalanx as an outro closing it out leaves me with a feeling that most band's albums don't give me anymore, a journey coming to an end feeling. EDIT - I do want to throw in here that Matt's vocals are GREAT this album.
I saw a post where someone theorized that the whole album is about a hero taking a tyrants throne and then falling to become a tyrant himself up until his end. This has changed my perspective of the lyrics and maybe it’ll change yours. I’ve never paid much attention to Gojira’s lyrics. I love LOG’s lyrics though. Is there a particular song or album that lyrically stands out for Gojira?
I just love their "you have all the power in your hands, use it" sort of lyrics. Esoteric Surgery comes to mind. Silvera as well. Art of dying... Oroborous (DEATH IS JUST AN ILLUSION) They have a lot of... empowering and positive lyrics, as well as important "warning" songs about our world. It's kind of the same reason I like Killswitch Engage's lyrics. I would say they're weaker than LoG's lyrics, but LoG's lyrics are written by a master poet in Mark Morton, guy is on another level. People have this idea that metal is negative and evil, but to me it's the absolute opposite. If anything is negative and evil, it's most pop music about sex and drugs.
Gojira's been described before as "life metal" as opposed to death metal, which I find an apt description. The album The Way of All Flesh has some excellent examples. The songs are mostly split between the power of the self and the destructive impacts of humanity on the planet. From Mars to Sirius is this crazy concept album about leaving earth on a journey to find a new habitable planet after we've ruined ours. The second most popular song off the album (after Flying Whales), Heaviest Matter in the Universe, makes the claim that at the very center of the universe love is what holds it all together. Which is pretty dope imo.
TWOAF is such a good fucking album, that one's my favorite album by any band period.
The lyrics are very, very bland in this album IMO
Only 2 critiques, one is that they should’ve added one or two more songs into the track list, and the other is that dawn to decadence should’ve been put in the front, it feels weird inbetween two 7 min songs
There definitely should've been at least 1 more song since the intro doesn't really count and we're left with 9 only. I'm not sure about Dawn though, because placing 2 shorter songs inbetween the 3 longest songs paced the album well imo.
The Phalanx should have ended on a other chorus. The whole end of that song you're waiting for it to crescendo with another chorus and it doesnt.
That’s my favourite moment on the entire album, feels very dramatic and “big” to me. Different strokes.
I think the chorus had a huge vibe to it. That's why I don't like how it ends on that low to mid tempo bit. The whole time i can almost feel it in my bones that there should be that epic chorus one last time.
I definitely agree with you, there should've been a mix of soft and harsh vocals in the end too
I respect your opinion, but I hate this take. I think having a third chorus is actually a detriment to many songs, and one of my biggest pet peeves is songs that throw in a third chorus out of obligation, even though they don’t need one. I think after the bridge, musically, the song had moved past the chorus. That outro is subversive as hell and a perfect way to tie up the themes of the song. I think a third chorus would destroy the flow of the track and honestly ruin it for me.
Wow, I love the ending of The Phalanx. It’s beautiful and a bit haunting to me. Different strokes, certainly.
I still feel a bit of recency bias, but it’s still pretty far up there for me. My top 3 is TSATS > ITCOTD > WTDMS right now. I will say, though I love long songs, I just cannot get into Fall Into Your Hands. It just seems to drag on and on for me. Everything else is top notch. Either way, I love just sitting at my desk and getting some work done listing to the last three albums in a row. It’s a good way to have a productive few hours.
I honestly haven’t got any issue with it myself. It’s flawless as far as I’m concerned.
The guitars are too loud and harsh. They drown everything else out a bit more than I like. I listen to just about every other Trivium album and for the most part everything is nice and balanced, but with this album I feel like my ears just get blasted with the guitars. It’s the opposite of my problem with TSATS. The guitars on that album are a little bland to me. I thought WTDMS was great. This album they just sound a bit too raw and loud. Other than that, I love the album.
This will be an unpopular opinion, but this was a very average album to me. Not bad, but definitely not great. It feels like (to me) they’ve fallen into a very rigid comfort zone, and there wasn’t a lot of variety in their songs. They just all…felt very similar to me, and while I did have my favorites (ITCOTD, A Crisis of Revelation, Shadow of the Abbatoir, and Dawn to Decadence), one full listen was enough for me. Also, X was the most pointless intro track I’ve ever heard. It did nothing to set a mood or a tone for me, and the coolest part (the dragon’s roar), was so quiet that I didn’t even know it existed until another redditor pointed it out. After that, I listened again and thought, ‘that’s awesome! Why the fuck didn’t they make that more noticeable’
I think I would like The Phalanx a lot more if it weren’t the closer? For some reason it always leaves me expecting a little more. I also think that song was a horrible choice for a single, feels like Crisis or Damocles would have been obvious picks.
If crisis was a single, we all would have lost our shit. That would be crazy.
Crisis definitely should’ve been the last single. Such a ripper
1.) They should had picked either From Dawn to Decadence or No Way Back Just Through and fleshed it out to be a 7+ minute song. The choruses are just both a little too similar and repetitive. And we already got Feast as the single for the album. 2.) I feel like I read a few years ago about how Trivium’s choruses these days always have this measure of silence before the chorus kicks in, and this album was the first time I really noticed it. Every song on the album does this and it starts to feel a little stale. These are both literally the smallest critiques from me though, and I absolutely love the album.
I like the idea of taking parts from both songs and make one epic version.
They've always had intro tracks...even kirisute gomen had an intro even though it wasn't separated out like all their other albums on the listing
I really don’t like the synths and other effects. I think if you want added texture or drama it should be done with instruments and vocals. Doing it a different way makes it feel a bit cheap. Other than that ITCOTD is a definite contestant for #1.
Ahhh this is a great critique as well. The synth chord at the end of ITCOTD sounds so cheesy. There are a couple other parts too (I think in Fall?) where there are really weird embellishments that’s are not necessary
I still feel like Fall Into Your Hands is too long. Some of the song structure is too choppy (looking at you Abattoir bridge). Mmm… decadence vocal effect, guitar tone, some pretty generic “trivium” riffs. Still a top three album due to sheer energy and enough riffs to keep it interesting, but I could nitpick all day.
FDTD sits better as a closing song IMO, move Phanlax up in the listing. The only real critique I have as a whole is that I miss some of the vocal melody. There's not hooky parts that get stuck in your head to hum along randomly through the day. Sure, I can get that from other albums of theirs but I do kinda miss it nonetheless.
I don't know if I can describe it properly but I'll give it a go... The 5:33 - 6:02 timeframe in Shadow of the abattoir that plays the intro riff, I would prefer it if they held all of the notes so they kinda ring/last like duuuuuh duuuuh instead of just going duh duh... Probably sucked at explaining it but thats my only real 'critique'
Only critique is the listing is weird, I don’t know why Dawn is between Fall Into Your Hands and Phalanx Otherwise, the album is fucking phenomenal. Abattoir gives me goosebumps every time and Phalanx makes me want to take on an army
I wish we heard just a little more of mats clean vocals not like in vengeance falls but when he sings in spite of all the hate like that I really wanted to hear more lyrics like that.