Trivium – 'In The Court Of The Dragon' Album Review

Tracklist:

1. X

2. In The Court Of The Dragon

3. Like A Sword Over Damocles

4. Feast Of Fire

5. A Crisis Of Revelation

6. The Shadow Of The Abattior

7. No Way Back Just Through

8. Fall Into Your Hands

9. From Dawn To Decadence

10. The Phalanx

Trivium are now onto album #10, how the hell did we get here? It only seems like yesterday that Trivium appeared as baby faced youths ripping the Metal world a new one with 'Ascendancy'. For this writer all Trivium albums are always held up against 'Ascendancy' as to how good they are. One thing you can’t ever really accuse Trivium of is recording the same album over and over again. Every album has been different (for better or worse) so where does 'In The Court of The Dragon' land in the overall rankings of Trivium albums.

'In The Court of The Dragon' starts with intro track “X” which sets the tones with what sounds like monks singing in church before totally exploding with the title track. The lead single 'In The Court of The Dragon' rips and snarls its way through 5 minutes with lots of variations. I don’t really know how Matt and Corey manage to fit so many catchy riffs and hooks into one song. It’s a great start to the album and all four members of Trivium clearly mean business.

3rd track 'Like A Sword Over Damocles' carries on with the brutality already displayed, this is Trivium at their best raging with blast beats and chugging riffs galore. Matt Heafy shows his continued growth as a vocalist as he effortlessly switches between screaming and melodic singing. The lead guitars in this song are really strong and fit in perfectly. Again, it’s amazing how many different movements this song goes through in 5 minutes 30 seconds.

4th track 'Feast Of Fire' slows the tempo down a bit but don’t think that means Trivium have gone soft. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this would have been the 1st song to have been released to radio from this album as it is easily the most accessible track to anyone who hasn’t heard Trivium before – it’s actually a credit to both band and label to not do what seemed obvious and push this track first. 'A Crisis Of Revelation' reminds me of 'Ascendancy' era Trivium and it's nice to see the boys look to their past in the middle of their tenth album.

'With The Shadow Of The Abattior' we have the first of 3 tracks that clock in at over 7 minutes. My first thought as this song starts was oh that sounds like it could be on an Iron Maiden album. This song is surprising as I didn’t really see this coming, this is unlike anything previously on the album. The guys playing is really restrained on the verses and there is so much space which lets the quiet parts really stand out. This song has some great dynamics and it doesn’t seem like 7 minutes have passed by the end of it.

'No Way Back Just Through' quickly reminds you that Trivium can just lock into a groove when needed to get the point across. There are some sick guitar tones on parts of this song and it’s the perfect song at this point in the album due to it not having 5,000 different riffs. Sometimes simplicity works perfectly. 'Fall Into Your Hands' is the longest track on the album at 7 minutes 45 Seconds. This is the sound of Trivium showing us exactly what they are capable of, every band member gets to shine on this epic, Trivium have taken the best bits of 10 albums worth of writing and thrown it all together in one song. This isn’t about playing 1,000 notes a minute for the whole song. It’s clear Trivium have spent a lot of time working this epic out.

Penultimate track 'From Dawn To Decadence' is a change up to the previous song. It’s another of those tracks that keeps things simple (by Trivium’s standards). The guy’s sound like they are paying homage to Zakk Wylde on this track due to the amount of pinch harmonics you hear (or squeals for non-guitarists). Album closer 'The Palanx' is the last of the 7-minute tracks and it’s another one of those tracks that catches you out as you think it’s gonna go one way only for it do something completely different. I did wonder if Trivium were going to be able to keep the quality of song writing up after 'In The Court Of The Dragon' but they really have bookended this album with 2 very grandiose songs.

I wasn’t overly keen on the last 2 Trivium albums but 'In The Court of The Dragon' has sucked me right back in. All I can really say is Fuck! This is one of the best albums I’ve heard in a long time. Trivium have seriously raised the bar this time around and it completely stands up against anything in their past (if not betters it). This may well be Trivium’s equivalent of 'Master of Puppets'.