Customer Reviews

In Waves (Special Edition)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Trivium's fifth album In Waves is their first album with new drummer Nick Augusto, and their first to be produced by Colin Richardson. Nick's style of drumming fits the band well so there is no need to worry about Travis's absence. Additionally, the general standard of production is brilliant and even the quality of the lyrics has improved.

At first, I was a little worried that the album mightn't be all that good, as I wasn't too keen on the pre-released tracks like the more radio friendly `In Waves,' and `Built To Fall,' or the heavier, more mid-album type tracks `Dusk Dismantled,' and `Inception Of The End,' all of which were objectively good songs but all seemed to be missing something.

That many tracks should be indicative of the album's quality as a whole, so I didn't get my hopes up. They did all grow on me however, and definitely make even more sense within the context of the album as a whole, so if you weren't keen on those tracks either, don't let it put you off listening to the whole album.

As a general rule, the songs are shorter than they were on the previous album Shogun, and a little more straight-forward in terms of composition and structure but this is not necessarily true of every single track. The best way to describe In Waves would be a mixture of radio friendly songs and Ascendancy type songs; when you get right down to it, its another regular Trivium album. No grand departure really.

Every Trivium album so far has had some alteration to the style of the vocals, some harder, some softer and some mixed. In Waves could be described as more mixed, but with some additional styles not heard on a Trivium album before too.

Overall; when you get past the vocal styles, the track lengths, the line up, the production and the albums historical context, at the end of the day the album will stand or fall on whether or not the songs are any good. In Waves has a lot of good songs on it, and for that reason alone you should pick up a copy.

So to summarize, In Waves is a well written and well produced album, perhaps no the single best release in the band's career by leagues and leagues, but ultimately a strong release that long time Trivium fans should definitely add to their collection.

*** If you should get the special edition version; you will find the bonus tracks `Slave New World,' which is a cover of the Sepultura classic, and `Shattering The Skies Above,' which previously featured on the Blood & Metal EP that was released to promote God Of War 3, as well as two bonus tracks `Ensnare The Sun,' and `Drowning In Slow Motion,' added into the actual running order of the album. This set comes with the discs housed in a double-digipak.

In addition to the bonus tracks, there is a DVD featuring the music video for `In Waves,' as well as a `Making Of,' documentary which is fairly substantial at 41 minutes and much more serious in tone than `The Making Of Shogun.' Furthermore there is an astounding quality live concert filmed in the band's practice area at Chapman Studios, in a similar style to Nine Inch Nail's The Slip. The track listing is:

`In Waves,'

`Black,'

`Built To Fall,'

`Watch The World Burn,'

`The Deceived,'

`Suffocating Sight,'

`Down From the Sky,'

`Ember To Inferno.'

The visuals, audio and editing of the live concert are absolutely superb and I highly recommend you buy this version. ***

I'm a bit surprised but some of the negative reviews. Its hard to imagine liking their previous work and not being really happy with this album as I am. The way it kicks in with In Waves is just straight bada$$.

A few reviewers mentioned not liking the song 'A Grey So Dark', one even calling it emo. Uhh...not so much. Slower and melodic, yes, emo it is not. A beautiful vocal melody in the chorus stood out to me on my first listen and continues to be a strong point in the album as far as I'm concerned. I guess they can't be everything to everyone but any Trivium fan should love this album. 'Watch the World Burn' is another one of my favorites along with 'Forsake not the dream'. The only song I don't really care for is Dusk Dismantled.

Also the idea that this is an attempt to sound more mainstream strikes me as totally absurd. This album is as heavy as anything they've done.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the album is 18 tracks, so with that many songs it takes longer to get to know the songs and appreciate the album more. I bought the special edition which is worth it in my opinion. I really enjoyed the DVD and its worth another 5 bucks, especially for people who like to take a look at the creative process of the album and get to know the band a bit more.

There are two types of Trivium records: where they try to be heavy, and where they try to be friendly. Ascendancy and Shogun (and Ember) were albums that tried to be heavy (and were pretty good), Crusade was more of a friendly album (which failed).

I would also call In Waves a more friendly, less heavy-striving record. But somehow this time they managed to nail it. IW may be remembered as the best record in their collection, because it will be extremely hard to top.

Trivium got loose, and in the process wrote some all-time epics. The title track is one that will bounce stadiums for a generation. Caustic Are The Ties That Bind has a metal chorus that you'll sing in your dreams.

The next tier of great tracks alone would have made this the best Trivium yet. Dusk Dismantled, Chaos Reigns, Inception of the End, all fantastic tracks, all totally heavy and unafraid.

The Special Edition even has 18 tracks and you won't skip over any of them. The band knows how to put together quality songs, period.

In Waves is the biggest and the best mainstream metal has to offer. The heaviness and song-writing are at a natural and optimum level. No top-tier band can match Trivium at this point.

Picked up the special edition with the bonus DVD. In fact, this is the first CD I've purchased in several years instead of downloading it online because I wanted to watch the documentary and the live tracks. I'll post quick reviews of the CD and then the DVD extras.

The CD was pretty disappointing, mainly because it is so average. I'm not going to break down each track because I'm sure a bunch of other reviewers will do it better than I can but I'll just say that the sound is not what I expected. Trivium have been one of my favorite bands since Ascendency. Crusade was pretty good but didn't blow me away. Shogun is in my top 20 favorite metal albums of all time so I was pretty excited for this release. All I can say is that they barely sound like Trivium any more and the excellent technical musicianship showcased on Shogun is hard to find on this one. Matts voice is pretty good for the most part, but there is WAY too much singing on this one. Nick sounds fine on drums. Paolo is hard to hear as usual. Corey is much more restrained on this one and doesn't blow me away with his playing as he has in the past. The album gets a 6.5/10 from me.

The extra DVD was pretty ridiculous. The Live recordings sound good enough but the production is so super polished that it barely seems like a live set and that makes it less fun to listen to. Additionally all the cameras were a little much.

The In Waves music video was super boring. I think they were trying to achieve an end-of-the-world effect or something but it was REALLY slow and, for the love of god, why was Matt clenching his jaw throughout the whole thing? It really looked ridiculous. Like he was trying to imitate The Rock but his 90lb frame couldn't do it.

The documentary was nothing but a huge ego-stroke for this band. The entire thing consists of the producers and studio team showering the band with compliments non-stop. They are so over the top in their praise of Matt and Paolo that you would swear they were paid specifically to state how awesome they are. Many comments about how these kids are "The best metal bass player/vocalist/guitar player etc... we've ever tracked". Hmmm.... I guess you'd just have to watch it to know what I mean. There is also a constant droning sound throughout the documentary that makes it annoying to listen to. The doc is over produced like the rest of the media associated with this release. Black and white and lots of brooding shots. For some reason they interviewed Matt while he was driving his car (for effect maybe? Dunno). The camera is constantly cutting here and there and never gives you any time to actually see these guys working. In 40 minutes you'll learn nothing about the how they developed these tracks. You never hear them screw up or laugh, enjoy themselves, cut up. Nothing. It's super slick and calculated. Nothing raw in here whatsoever.

Finally, I really like Matt Heafy but after listening to this album and watching all of the media content on the DVD it's obvious that Matt has a tight grip on the band and is a control freak when it comes to creating the "image" he sees for Trivium. The rest of the band members clearly aren't excited about this forced "theme" for In Waves and come across as though they are just humoring Matt for the most part.

I've seen these guys live and still think they are a great band, one of my fans, but In Waves is average and probably won't get much playtime from me.

Trivium's brand of music is metal plain and simple. They are one of the few consistent bands around today, which means a couple of things; you can expect melody which I think is overlooked in metal across the board and second you can expect a dare I say subtle type of aggression. Melody is something that metalheads tend to view as a weakness in a metal album, I think a lot of people get lost in guitar solos and blatant anger and aggression, and Trivium I don't believe buy into that philosophy completely. They seem to make metal songs that are accessible to almost everyone. I have friends that only listen to rap and then I play some Trivium and they really buy into the band. Before I get absolutely slaughtered let me just say that being accessible to even the most casual listener of metal music is not a bad thing. If more bands could find a balance metal music would have truly survived the turn of the century and I say this because it really had become more of a niche style of music and that is really too bad. Bands like Judas Priest and Iron Maide and even Metallica were very widely praised and listened to by millions in their era and that just really isn't true these days for the more modern metal band and I think Trivium bucks the trend as much as they possibly can.

That being said I think this is Trivium's magnum opus and eventhough it has gotten some disappointing reviews here I truly believe that those people will come around after giving it a few more listens. It seemed like an eternity since 'Shogun' which was a good album but 'In Waves' will be the album that Trivium is remembered for, the title track is worth the purchase price all on it's own and that is hard to do. Just give it a try and if you don't immediately buy in keep listening and everything in the album will tie in seemlessly.

Although this album can't hold a candle to Shogun, this is a great follow-up. From beginning to end, this album is packed with good songs, that are awesome when played live.

The album isn't as great as Shogun. It's a little too long. Also, if you'd think the album would be less boring because of the abundance of clean vocals, you're wrong. The only two tracks that stood out to me were In Waves and Caustic Are the Ties That Bind. I miss Ascendancy.

If you are at all a true fan of trivium, you definitely will not be dissapointed with this album. Or, if you are simply a metal fan, then you will find alot here to enjoy.In my opinion, this is Trivium's best release. In Waves is a blend of all of their previous albums with new elements added to their sound.It has the in your face feel of shogun, combined with the screaming vocals and melodies of ascendancy, also some metallica-esque crusade as well.

Some people who are hardcore death metal fans will be turned off by trivium's slightly more "mainstream" approach. But,to me its just them maturing with there musical ability.Many bands use that as a lame excuse to justify that they are becoming soft, or getting old and running out of ideas.This is NOT the case by any means. And they ARE NOT in any way selling out like so many other metal bands have in that way.This is the first album with their new drummer and he is an excellent fit.Matt Heafy's vocals are among his best ever, the bass playing is top notch, and cory's leads are as always: amazing.

The album starts with "capsizing the sea" which is a great build up intro to the title track "in waves" which is one of the best tracks on the album.My personal favorites are also:"built to fall","black","a grey so dark" "caustic are the ties that bind" and "of all these yesterdays" which is a simple yet beautiful ballad.some may be turned off that some guitar riffs are easier. But i asure you they havent lost any steam.There are only a few songs on this album that i dont think are "great" but none are bad by any means. most are blistering. They do step back to their roots with tracks like "dusk dismantled" which is a pure sonic assult.

Simply put, if you love heaviness, but also love epic melodies, or are a musician (i'm a guitarist which makes it easier to appreciate trivium's musical ability), you will be in for a treat.i suggest picking up the special edition which has an awesome live set in the studio, documentary of making "in waves", "in waves" music video and 5 extra tracks on the cd and more.. This album has fantastic musicianship, high production values and polish, coupled with inspiring lyrics.This should certainly be metal album of the year nominee.

After listening to this album a few times i can easily say that next to Ascendency this is my favorite Trivium album. The songs are much heavier and melodic as compared to those on the Crusade and Shogun. Heafy is still amazing at writing riffs and belting out screams that make it impossible to not bang your head.

1. Capsizing the Sea- The piano is really cool and creepy on this song. Its just a short intro to the album so i didnt expect much. Overall its a cool track.

2. In Waves- This song gets the album starting in perfect form. I love the simple guitar riff and the chorus gets stuck in my head for hours at a time. This song is absolutely amazing. My favorite part is around 3:30 when Heafy does the clean chorus with the muted guitars in the background.

3.Inception of the End- A heavily technical song that kicks so much ass. Another amazing mix of screams and clean vocals with a chorus that i always find myself singing along to.

4.Dusk Dismantled- This song is alright. Not as strong as In Waves or Inception of the End but overall a great track. The opening riff is sick and the deep growls give this song a great heavy/creepy feel to it.

5.Watch the World Burn- This is one of my least favorite songs on the album. I love the guitars on this song but the lyrics dont really seem to cut it for me. It just seems to fall flat to me and slightly forced. It just doesnt flow well.

6.Black- This is just the kind of fast paced ass kicking song i wanted to get from Trivium. I love this song, it has the right mix of heavy guitars and melodic singing that just seems to work well for Trivium.

7.A Skyline's Severance- This is a good song, to me it seems pretty similar to Black but just with more screaming. I like it but it doesnt seem too different.

8.Ensnare the Sun- I cant express how much i hate this song. I can respect Heafy trying to imitate bands like Opeth by bringing the acoustic guitars into a heavy album but this song is so out of place. It serves no purpose on the album and just breaks up the album for no reason. I hate bands that put little 1 minute filler songs in.

9.Built to Fall- A decent song. It has nothing special.

10.Caustic Are The Ties That Bind- This song has one of the coolest guitar parts on the CD. When the chorus kicks in it is so beautiful and melodic yet still awesome and asskicking. A great song.

11.Forsake Not The Dream- The opening sounds like it belongs in a pop-punk song then it goes into this cool melodic riff that is pretty cool but the screaming seems a little out of place over the melodic guitars.

12.Drowning In Slow Motion- The drums are insane on this track it blows my mind. This song has a really cool riff that works great with Heafy's screams and the slightly dissonant sound on his clean vocals sounds amazing on here.

13.A Grey So Dark- This song confuses me. The guitars play this amazing thrashy riff but Heafy's vocals are all clean and it just isnt very interesting. This song just isnt worth listening to.

14.Chaos Reigns-This song is pretty straightforward. Its a heavy song with alot of screaming. But when Heafy screams Chaos Reigns over and over again it seems like he is rushing and got the timing off. Maybe its just me but it sounds a little weird.

15.Of All These Yesterdays- The clean vocals on this song are absolutely amazing. No matter how many times i listen to it i cant believe its still Heafy singing there. This is probably the slowest song on the album but its so good. It has this amazing rhythm and flow to it.

16.Leaving This World Behind- What can i say.....another 1 minute filler song. It serves no purpose and shouldnt be on the album.

17.Shattering the Skies Above- This song was featured on God of War 3 and its a great solid track. It sounds more like the Trivium from Shogun to me but its still amazing none the less. The drums get a little weird at 2:10 but overall this track is really good.

18.Slave New World- A cover of a Sepultra song. I am not a fan of Sepultra at all but this cover is absolutely amazing. When the acoustic guitar came in i got chills down my spine.

Overall this album is really goood-minus the two filler songs with no purpose. I would definitely recommend that people buy this album whether they are new to Trivium or not.

I'll start by saying that Trivium was my absolute favorite band from 2005 (when I first discovered them) up until this album. This album is an absolute disgrace. I am truly bewildered that so many people are on board with the new Trivium. The music is by far technically worse than almost everything Trivium has done in the past. Nick Augusto is not half the drummer that Travis Smith was and his drumming ability is laughable by comparison. I am not speaking out of mindless distaste or arrogance and I can offer a great deal of points to validate my opinions. The bottom line is that I suggest you do not purchase this album. There are a vast amount of great metal bands to follow and Trivium (very much to my disappointment) is not one of them.