Trivium Review

Defenders of the Faith Tour 2 - Trivium, plus:  In Flames, Ghost & Rise to Remain


Florida’s metal band Trivium headline The Defenders of the Faith tour 2 and disappoint crowds with an unsatisfying performance.

Trivium have released their fifth studio album “Waves”, they’re touring around the world alongside guitar heroes In Flames and promising metal new comers Rise to Remain. Surely things couldn’t be going any better for them right? Well you could be very mistaken. Trivium kicks off the Defenders of the Faith Tour 2 at the Guildhall in Southampton, it’s not a sold out gig and I’m not surprised why, Trivium are somewhat displeasing live.

Despite the tour being a perfect opportunity for Trivium to step up their game in the world of metal, they debatably have gone down in my books.

They come onstage four hours after a handful of bands. Fans suffer a tedious and agonising 20 minutes with Swedish metal band Ghost who seem to come on stage dressed to impress or perhaps dressed unusually to cover up the fact that they aren’t talented. After three years since the band has formed the anonymous front man still thinks it necessarily to keep his identity a secret. Yet again he acquires an interesting taste in clothing as he strides confidently onto the stage dressed, ironically as the pope. The band plays with the tours theme Defenders of the Faith, but their dress code doesn’t particularly make them appear clever or humorous instead they seem over the top and cliché.

Perhaps it’s time for Ghost to stop hiding behind their ghoulish outfits which quite frankly has become a boring routine, that metal god’s such as Slipknot can only get away with. The crowd comes to a standstill when they begin their repetitive, not so impressive riffs and depressingly dull and satanic vocals. It’s hard to believe this band is on after British newcomers Rise to Remain.

Metal core Rise to Remain don’t mess around with hiding their identities. They don’t attempt to look scary or try to create an eerie atmosphere. They are simply a 5 piece metal core band from London and don’t feel the need to hide it. They have received a lot of promising reviews and praise from us recently and as predicted their songs go down a treat. Anyone who caught them playing at Download and Sonisphere festival last year know what to except from the band. They opened the set by playing their single Nothing Left which no doubt created a frenzy of mosh pits in the venue, masses of metal heads expressing themselves.

Austin Dickinson’s charms work on the crowd as he managed to unite the crowd by ordering everyone to put their arms around the person next to them and head bang together. The venue turns into an army of metallers embracing the music.

Rise to Remain are the definition of metal. They are loud, embrace individuality and fear nothing. Despite front man Austin’s famous Iron Maiden roots being the son of their lead vocalist and song writer Bruce Dickinson, they have in no way used that to their advantage to attract attention. Or in any way have tried to sound similar. They set the gig off to a hopeful start, which seems to be destroyed when Ghost ruin the atmosphere for the remaining of the gig.

Trivium’s main influences are Swedish band In Flames do turn the tables around with playing Immersion. Immersion is their biggest hit recently, mainly because it was collaborated with the popular band Pendulum. It gets the crowd moshing and alive again. Considering it’s the first year with new band member Niclas Engelin In Flames are impressive. They play the appropriate amount of time, so the audience doesn’t lose interest. In Flames don’t need gimmicks to make them look good, they’ve been round since the 90’s and without them the bands which played tonight wouldn’t be where they are now. I can’t understand why the pioneers of melodic death metal aren’t headlining this gig.

The excitement for Trivium lasts for about 5 minutes. The crowd still buzzing after In Flames gives Trivium a chance but the calm atmosphere across the venue should not be created at a metal gig. Matt Heafy tries to win over the British crowd by yelling: “Britain was the first place that accepted us, we feel like were home when we come back!” This gets a few cheers but nothing major.

On the optimistic side there is no doubt that their classics such as “Dying in Your Arms” and “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr” gets everyone screaming along but it seems to be that although there’s  a mixture of old and new Trivium fans and their new material from more recent albums still doesn’t go down as well. Eventually a sense of boredom arises in the atmosphere, perhaps due to the lengthiness of the gig, there is a few sighs of relief from the audience that the 4 hours is finally over.