YMMV / Trivium

• Audience-Alienating Era: As time has gone on, Vengeance Falls and Silence in the Snow have come to be regarded as this, as the general consensus from fans seems to be that they were trying way too hard to have big radio hits at the expense of everything else, and wound up sounding like an extremely watered down version of themselves that focused on big choruses to the detriment of the rest of their sound. The band seems to agree with this, as "Strife" and "Until the World Goes Cold" have been the only consistent setlist entries from either of those albums since the latter half of 2017, with other songs only showing up on deep cut livestream sets. Depending on who you ask, this may extend to In Waves; while it did give birth to several setlist staples and it has its fair share of fans, numerous people slammed it on release as an uninspired, watered-down album that tried too hard to be Ascendancy and failed completely, and is generally considered to be one of their most polarizing releases at this point in time.
• Awesome Music: The band has a number of moments lyrically and musically that just take things to the apex. Of course, then they do it again.
  • The first is "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr", where the supposed fascist that is being killed asks "Oh god why?!" to which our hero replies "'Cause I'm god, that's fucking why!" (Badass boast, much?) Combining Wish-Fulfillment with being the human embodiment of Laser-Guided Karma so you can justifiably do evil unto evil? Awesome. This is followed by a ridiculously awesome solo by producer Jason Suecof.
  • The middle section riff of "Ascendancy" which is a full eight bars and filled with ridiculous accurate guitar technique and a mixed lead/rhythm approach.
  • "A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation", which follows it's Breakdown-as-Verse-Riff (how did they make that work?) with this chorus: "A gunshot/ to the head of trepidation/ my promise/ if you ever lay a finger!"
  • The ending title track of The Crusade, where there are, among other things, ridiculously arcane chords, tapping as an approach to riffing (how did they make that work?), gleefully fucking around with tonality, and so many epic Guitar Solos that one of them happens on top the loop of Paulo Gregoletto's Bass solo!
  • "Down from the Sky." The song centers on the bombing of Hiroshima, but that's just a context for the sheer awesomeness of the song.
  • "The Shadow of the Abattoir." A perfect combination of Iron Maiden song structure combined with a furious metalcore-style bridge (how did they make that work?).
• Common Knowledge: Capharnaum is consistently touted as Matt's side project among many fans. Except it's not. They released their debut album in 1997, two years before the band was even formed, and not only was Matt was a fan of them before he joined, but he was brought in on vocals for Fractured extremely early in their career. This is evidenced by just about all reviews of the album dated at its release not even mentioning Matt by name, just referring to him as their new vocalist because it came out before Ascendancy, therefore Trivium had yet to make a name for themselves, and the band was completely abandoned after with no activity since. Matt and Jason Suecof have apparently talked about doing another album at various points over the years, but their mutual lack of time has perpetually forced it onto the back burner.
• Contested Sequel: The Crusade, and to a smaller extent, In Waves and What the Dead Men Say. The band themselves doesn't like the former and particularly hates "The Rising", which was basically a Black Sheep Hit from the get-go that wound up not even being a hit; aside from a few tracks, they currently refuse to touch the album.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Joins the ranks of Chimaira, The Dillinger Escape Plan and even Converge as being one of metalcore's most heralded bands.
• Even Better Sequel: Ascendancy. In the Court of the Dragon has also been heralded as this, as it followed what was generally considered to be an unremarkable and subpar album with a far denser and openly Progressive Metal-leaning release and was almost instantly heralded as their best release since at least Shogun, if not their career as a whole.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Europe didn't really get the big first-wave metalcore explosion in the mid-00's, and for a while Trivium were huge in the UK amongst young metalheads.
• Growing the Beard:
  • While most of the band's output has generally received positive reviews, it's mostly accepted that it is Shogun where Trivium truly started to musically mature thanks to its heavy influence from Progressive Metal and offering more interesting and complex lyrics from there on out.
  • While Silence in the Snow has a polarizing reception from the fandom, they universally agree that this is where Matt had truly begun to better his singing voice. Compared to the previous albums, Matt offers a more operatic and commanding clean vocal style, allowing him to be much more distinctive in comparison to other vocalists in the Metalcore genre and similar 00s and 10s Metal bands. It helps that Matt received vocal training from David Draiman since recording Vengeance Falls, which explains a clear vocal difference between the two albums. Matt's improved vocals would persist in future Trivium albums, weaving in very well with his harsh shouts and screams.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The main criticism of What the Dead Men Say, which was generally panned on release as an uninspired, watered-down retread of The Sin and the Sentence. This sentiment only deepened when In the Court of the Dragon was released and praised for its significantly darker, heavier, and more progressive approach, and most fans will nowadays cite the former as one of their worst.
• Memetic Mutation: BOAT! RUDDER! STRANGE! MOUNTAIN!
• Replacement Scrappy: Most of the drummers since Travis Smith (and even then, many people have come to realize that he had his own issues, namely his terrible live performances). Mat Madiro (who was generally viewed as competent but extremely boring on album and was never really viewed as part of the band) and Paul Wandtke (who had a lot of issues with staying clean on higher tempos) were not well-liked. Lastly, Nick Augusto was a zigzagged example; while he was notorious for his inconsistent and often extremely poor live performances (which were probably exacerbated by his drinking), many fans also felt that his playing style and skillset were wasted either way, as he was a death metal drummer at heart and could have been used to take the band in a more extreme direction, but instead found himself playing on two of their most openly mainstream-grasping albums up to that point. Subverted so far with Alex Bent, as the general consensus with him seems to be "do whatever you have to do to keep him".
• Spiritual Successor: They were positioned as one of these to Metallica back around The Crusade due to their turn towards a more Thrash Metal-inspired sound, but they largely abandoned that approach with Shogun due to their displeasure with how The Crusade turned out. On an internal basis, In the Court of the Dragon is something of this to Shogun, with a similarly Progressive Metal-inspired approach.
• Signature Song: A roughly three-way split between "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr", "Down from the Sky", and "In Waves", with "Black" and "The Rising" not far behind.
• Win Back the Crowd: After a string of very divisive albums, their eighth LP The Sin and the Sentence found the sweet spot, receiving almost unanimous praise from both the fans of their older albums and those who enjoyed their Lighter and Softer direction on Vengeance Falls and Silence in the Snow, and Alex Bent wound up being the first drummer in ages that was more or less universally accepted by the fandom.

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