What the Dead Men Say - Trivium (2020)

What the Dead Men Say is the ninth studio album by Florida metal group Trivium who have just entered their 21st year of existence and with their latest effort seem to finally have cracked the formula for producing music in post-metalcore times. Trivium were one of the pioneers of melodic metalcore back in the mid to late-2000s with albums like Ascendency (2005) and Shogun (2008) and looked to constantly be on the rise to greater things; however consistency in album quality hindered them. This inconsistency continued into the 2010s as well with albums like Vengeance Falls (2013) and Silence in the Snow (2015) proving not to be up to the standard that fans had come to expect from the band, despite being well received critically – it was not necessarily the song writing that was at fault but more the change in musical direction with Silence in the Snow sounding more like a power metal album than anything Trivium-esque. Nonetheless, WTDMS and 2017’s The Sin and the Sentence seem to have put the band back on track, heading towards their signature heavy sound that fans know and love.

Despite this album being only 10 songs, they have still managed to pack in just over 45 minutes of brutal heavy metal with songs like the title track (‘What the Dead Men Say’), ‘Sickness Unto You’ and ‘Amongst the Shadows & the Stones’ proving what Trivium are still capable of. All three examples exhibit the signature metalcore mix of screaming and singing intertwined throughout the song; a characteristic that came back on some songs on The Sin and the Sentence but not on the main singles, more on peripheral tracks like ‘The Wretchedness Inside’. Musically, as well, the songs are very well constructed with a definite consistency throughout the album – ‘The Ones We Leave Behind’, the last song on the album, outros to a duelling guitar solo and contains likable elements that are also found on the earlier tracks, but do not come across overused. Blast beats, heavy riffs and breakdowns are used all across the album, and are almost exceptional in songs like the title track and ‘Amongst the Shadows & the Stones’; so much so that if one listened to either of these tracks outside of the album’s context, they could be mistaken for any album pre-2011.

Stand out tracks for me would be two of the singles in ‘What the Dead Men Say’ and ‘Catastrophist’, as well as ‘Amongst the Shadows & the Stones’ – I add the bonus third song as I have commented too much about it musically to not give it recognition as one of my favourites. ‘Catastrophist’ was the first single released off the album and set up the album in good stead, and it did not disappoint with What the Dead Men Say definitely being their heaviest album since In Waves (2011) and potentially their best. The album has clearly been made as an album for old-school Trivium fans as it pays homage to their roots in metalcore and thrash metal and hints at heavier and more consistent times for fans to look forward to.