Customer Reviews

Ember to Inferno

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

OK, I admit, I bought Ascendancy first, and after falling in love with it, I had to get Ember to Inferno. At first, I thought it was good, but not great. After many listens, I can add this to the list of my fave metal albums of all time. The on difference between this and Ascendancy is that this has more of a metalcore feel to it, while still maintaining the thrash elements and melodic sensibility that are the trademark of Trivium. Matt Heafy's voice sounds a little different, with his growl being less powerful and his clean voice not as polished. He really sounds like Hetfield during the clean passages though. I'll give a quick track by track rundown:

1. Inception the Bleeding Skies- 8/10 an instrumental, sets you up well for the rest of the album

2. Pillars of Serpents - 9/10 does not have the trademark Trivium sound, but a VERY heavy song. Brutal riffing and mostly growled vox

3. If I Could Collapse the Masses - 10/10 - classic metalcore sound with Gothenburg riffing, love this track

4. Fugue (A Revelation) 9.5/10 - this song grows on you, great melodic parts in it, disjointed sounding verses

5. Requiem - 10/10 - the catchiest song on the album, you will love it first time through, beauitiful guitar sound

6. Ember to Inferno - 9/10 - great tune, similar riffing to fugue, great chorus

7. Ashes - 9/10 - second instrumental, very creepy feel to it, very ominous

8. To Burn the Eye - 9.5/10 - what an incredible piece of sonwriting, this one clocks in at 7 minutes!!!! keep in mind, heafy was 16 years old when he wrote this!!!!

9. Falling to Grey - 10/10 - wow, just awesome, memorable chorus, memorable riffs

10. My Hatred - 11/10 - best song, opening sounds like Creeping Death, leads to thrashy sounding riff, incredible vocals, such emotion behind it

11. When All Light Dies - 9/10 - good closing song, I like how it ends

12. A View of Burning Empires - 8/10 - final instrumental, approximates the final riff on prior song

Overall, you can feel that this is a bit of a theme album, relating to the destruction of man, and a cataclysmic event destroying our world. They lyrics are poetic, and the whole album has an epic, dark feel to it. A must have for fans of Unearth and All That Remains, but far superior to work either of them has done. BUY THIS ALBUM!!!!!

This is a pretty worthy listen for those into speedy metalcore with fast paced screaming and some melodic breakdowns. Just like your typicial metalcore band, except a little better. Heafy's singing voice is not as whiney as, say, Atreyu. For a debut attempt, they've done a good job.

The problem with this is a recurring flaw found in many albums in the metalcore genre. It's monotonous. It's repetitious. And it lacks creativity to a certain point. The riffs are very fast and catchy. The solos are pretty cool too, and the double bass drumming is a great display of technique, but...it's all the same. The album is almost viewble as one long song, because regardless of the melodic breakdowns, the each song picks up from where the last stopped.

However, with only one major setback to this production, this is definitely worth listening to. It's excellent ear candy, but I recommend listening to it in doses. This is not the album you want in your cd player on the "repeat all" mode while cramming for finals, because it gets repetitious after a while. I don't want to say that, after a good long listen, it's "boring," per se, because it's not. It's just the opposite. Boring would be due to lack of speed and repetition, but this just gets a little annoying after a while.

Hope this was helpful.

These guys blew my mind away. How can a band composed of kids produce such a heavy and technical sound. I bought their cd after seeing hearing them on Headbanger's Ball and have since loved every moment I put the CD in the disc player. The only problem I have with the band is that the singers screams are very monotonous and doesn't have any highs or lows...just stays the same....like Lamb of God's singer. He does a great job on melody though. I'm giving them 5 stars because I can't believe these kids were able to accomplish this at their age.

Word of Advice: Don't listen to this while driving ><. You might get a speeding ticket.

This small label debut is definitely worth picking up for fans of thrash/hard emo. This album is just loaded with riffs -- riff mania - i mean it. Its like Heafy had been saving up years of in flames, sepultura, and metallica style riffs and laid them all out on this. Its hard to believe they were able to put out "Ascendency" as soon as they did.

I feel like this is a much more sincere and thoughtful record than 90% of whats coming out of this genre right now. The vocals are great. He never sounds like he's trying too hard to sound like anyone else. There's both subtlety and insanity. Highly recommended.

"...this is an album to yell at the world for damning you. By far this is an album that is a standout in the metal world and will continue to be played well into the future and will stay fresh..." smother.net

"...Trivium's name represents the three basic liberal arts that medieval idealists believed to be the most eloquent. Grammar, logic and rhetoric. Trivium may not be eloquent by medieval standards but their debut album should be listened to because it is quite good. These guys represent the future of real metal and they should be praised..." metalreviews.com

"...In Flames, Shadows Fall, Amon Amarth, At The Gates, all names that came to mind when listening to this. They may pay tribute to their influences, but they run wild with the imagination and took my breath away, as I'm sure they will yours as well..." pahardcore.com

I saw these guys live opening for machine head... the band that played before trivium was so horrible that anything even remotely metal was a welcome change, and when they first fired up, I was a little skeptical but a funny thing happened... I started to nod my head, and then later a powerful melody came at me, and then a blastbeat, and a breakdown, and an excellent clean vocal hook... I was won over by the end of the set... so I picked this up at the show.

These kids, play melodic metal in the vien of at the gates and in flames, and there is even a slight viking metal influence on the melodies in the clean vocals (think emperor mixed with nothingface, as strange as that sounds it works) Trivium arent winning any badges right now for innovation, but youll be hard pressed to find alot of bands that do this style with more conviction than trivium... in the US at least, there is a youthful energy on here that is very refreshing. One thing you really have to admire is the musicianship, especially considering that main composer vocalist matt heafy was 17 when this album was made (he handles all the guitar)

One of my gripes with this album is that there are alot of mediocre moments... and a few songs that probably shouldnt have been on there, but for every ok song there are 2-3 good ones... when these guys are firing on all cylinders its a truly beautiful thing. Alot of the songs have a very epic, and hopeful feel to them that makes this album at times very empowering, and there are some absolutely beautiful melodies that I havent exactly heard anywhere else, although in a song there may also be a kind of bland part right before a really moving and brilliant one...

Sometimes, the songs stretch on a little bit too long, there were times when I wish that they had been a verse or two shorter... even though there are alot of choruses, they manage to mix it up alot with solos and breakdowns etc, but this seems to have been remedied on some of the newer material theyre working on... The singer has a really good voice, and I could defenitely see that being a secret weapon against bands like shadows fall who have crappy clean vocals... and believe me, at the rate these kids are going, they'll play cirlces around everyone in no time, they defenitely gave chimaira and machinehead a run for their money.

look, even though I gave this three stars, I listen to it quite a bit, and actually enjoy it alot. there is a blatant slayer rip off song, and a few songs that dont have as much of an impact as others, but for what it is this is a very solid debut... it made me raise the horns more than a few times... just have patience, because really, there are some damn fine riffs on here and I bet this band could be a force to be reckoned with if they could just find their own sound a little bit, and have a better nack for paying attention to details... and maybe if they kicked the breakdowns up a notch in technicality.

Great musicianship, excellent melodies... the production isnt bad ( on the extended edition there are two newer songs that show what they are more capable of, and has cleaner production ) it tends to drag on a bit and even though you know alot of bands have done this style before, this album is very enjoyable... if not a little repeatetive.

This is still 10 times the record " soundtrack to your escape" will ever be. Catch these guys live, because theyre playing new songs that absolutely destroy, and they know how to bring the thrash.

Unfortunatly I can't give this band more than five stars. If I could you would see a good 10 stars (at least) at the top. This band blows every other look alike, sound alike, act alike band away. These guys are first of all original, wonderfully talented, and they deserve all the fame and applause they can recieve. Some of these reviewers are saying that Trivium's voice is unpolished, weak and too nu-metal! Hey kids, remember this: at the time this album came out, lead singer Matthew K. Heafy was only 16 years old. The oldest member of this band, lead guitarist Corey K. Beaulieu, was only 18. These were but kids.
The riffs on this album are complexe, complicated, choppy and smooth and the solos are perfectly calculated, melodic, thrashy, energetic and mind blowing. The singing is fenominal and the screams are insane and intense coming from someone of such a young age. I saw these guys live in concert during the summer alongside In Flames, Shadows Fall and Mudvayne, and they were amazing. It's hard to believe that Heafy can play those riffs he plays so well while still singing at the same time. This is something very difficult to learn. These boys are truly the next Metallica. They've worked hard to achieve what they have so far and have yet to sell out arenas and stadiums. These boys are going all the way to the top. This is definatly a must have for anyone interested in this genre. I also recomend their new album on Roadrunner Records - "Ascendancy". Another 5 stars there. Truly a band to watch out for...

TRIVIUM is a four-piece from Orlando, just signed with Roadrunner, which will be their major label debut. They're all very young -- all under 23, I think, and the lead singer/guitarist, Matt Heafy, was born in 1986...making him a whole 18 years old. Despite their youth, they're all extremely talented and they play a sort of old-school thrash with heavy Gothenberg-style death metal influences. Matt sounds a lot at times like a Kill 'em All-era James Hetfield, but he has a greater range so it might not be immediately apparent (it's most noticable on tracks like "Martyr," which you can listen to for free on their website, and "Sworn" and "The Storm" from their Demo CD). His vocals range from metalcore growls to clean singing.

If you're unsure if you'd like this band, they have lots of free music on their website, which is easy enough to find if you google them. Check the downloads page.

Fugue, Blinding Tears Will Break the Skies, The Decieved, When All Light Dies, and If I Could Collapse the Masses are my favorite tracks on this disc, all 5 star songs. The rest of the songs are all very good too; I'd give them all at least a 4 star rating, with the possible exception of Demon, which I thought wasn't quite as good as the others.

Their Roadrunner debut is a new album forthcoming in March (3/15/2005), called Ascendancy. The few songs I've heard from the album thus far sound like it'll be as good as or better than what they've done before, so it's definitely something to look forward to.

FOR THOSE WHO ARE NOT SURE ABOUT BUYING THIS CD, HERE ME NOW...IF YOU LIKE BANDS WHO DELIVER GREAT MUSIC, THEN THIS BAND WILL DO IT...MATT DELIVERS GREAT RIFFS AND ESPECIALLY INSANELY LEADS...AND NOT TO MENTION HIS SCREAMING AND MELODIC VOCALS..THEN THERES COREY, THIS GUY IS SICK...I CANT EVEN DESCRIBE HIS PLAYING...ITS RAD!!! WHILE ALL IN ALL TRAVIS IS DOING LIGHTNING FAST DOUBLE BASS ACTION!!!PUT THOSE TTHREE GREAT ARTIST AND YOU HAVE ONE OF THE GREATEST BANDS EVER...BUT DONT TAKE MY WORD FOR IT...FIND OUT BY YOURSELF AND BUY THE CD!!!THEN TELL ME IF I WAS WRONG....TRUST ME, YOULL BE GLAD YOU BOUGHT THIS CD INSTEAD OF BUYING SOMETHING THAT WOULDNT BE WORTH BUYING!!!!

I found out about these guys when they released their demo and was blown away by what I heard. Their release of 'Ember To Inferno' fined tuned their already excellent sound and conquered all other metal albums released this year with an excellent view of plenty more to come. They have a genuine sound; the future of metal rests in hands of good bands like this. This ablum is highly recommended for everyone who wants to support true metal.