Trivium, The Crusade

In 2000, at the age of fourteen, Matt Heafy became Trivium's lead vocalist/guitarist. Five years later, the band released its second album, Ascendancy, with a finally solidified lineup. From there, Trivium got right down to business and put out its third album, The Crusade, in late 2006.

Twelve seconds into opening track, "Ignition," two things are evident: That the band has adopted an old school metal approach musically, and that Matt Heafy has ditched his scream-based vocal delivery. As a result, the guitars, bass and drums are even more pummeling than before, and Heafy's vocals do a much better job of suiting the music. Next in line is "Detonation," which features a multi-bridge section in its second half. Then comes the vicious "Entrance of the Conflagration," which contains elements of old school thrash metal, along with the aforementioned "Ignition," and later tracks "Unrepentant," "To the Rats," "Tread the Floods" and "Contempt Breeds Contamination." When Trivium isn't stepping on the gas during this album, they do a great job of laying down grooves as shown in "Anthem (We Are the Fire)," "Becoming the Dragon" and "The Rising." Regarding one of the old school metal elements on The Crusade, Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu upped the ante, and actually improved their already stellar lead guitar playing by unleashing plenty of scale-based shredding and arpeggio madness for the album's duration.

Despite the fairly drastic stylistic change by the band, many of its fans have enjoyed The Crusade, and many fans of old school metal who have been looking to newer bands to add something to the style will probably like it as well.