Reviews

Trivium - Live Music Review in Bristol

Posted on: 2016-03-29

Of the set, their older material (Like Light to Flies, Dying in your Arms) sounded better than their newer material, but they maintain a high level of energy throughout and the crowd are clearly enjoying every minute.

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Trivium brought their popular brand of commercial metal to Bristol's O2 Academy on Wednesday March 23rd 2016, only to be outshone by their support and cement the fact that they’re very much ‘beige’ metal by numbers. A great evening punctuated by some technical, and sometimes musical, issues...

So good on record are Trivium that I’d been looking forward to getting the chance to see them live to hear their anthemic metal played to a room full of their ravenous fans…But first up was newly formed London-based band, As Lions. Their sound is probably best described as a very average Funeral for a Friend, but without the skyscraper sized chorus’. Their front man had good stage presence and did a great job of working up the crowd, but was clearly a huge Bruce Dickinson fan, as his mannerisms were taken straight out of his repertoire - just a shame he didn’t have the vocal range to match (though not many rock vocalists do in fairness!). Their set wasn’t all that memorable but for a band that’s only been together a few months, shows like this are the type of exposure they need to ply their trade and find their niche.

Having been slightly underwhelmed with the opening support, I wasn’t holding out much hope for the ridiculously named Heart of a Coward from ‘boring’ Milton Keynes; though I was happy to be proved wrong from the opening note. Absolutely balls-out, down-tuned techno metalcore (if there’s such a thing?) with belly rumbling verses and melodic solos. Set highlight was ‘Hollow’ which blew me and just about every other person in the room away. Thoroughly entertaining and high octane for their whole set, which absolutely energised the crowd.

Heart of a Coward

Trivium’s road crew then proceeded to spend the next half an hour prepping the stage, moving their props into place which would no doubt make for some epic lighting and effects during their set. The stage set itself had somewhat of a Spinal Tap feel to it, but I was willing to stay open minded until they’d at least taken to the stage.

They used Iron Maiden’s Run to the Hills as their intro music which had all 1500+ of the sell out Academy crowd singing at full throat before taking to the stage, opening the set with the title track from their latest album “Silence in the Snow”. On record, this song sounds huge and epic…but it sounded underwhelming and not at all impactful, which was, unfortunately, a recurring theme for most of the evening. After the wall of noise that HoaC created, Trivium sounded like they were playing unplugged, so quiet and badly mixed was their sound. Kick drums were too loud and the snare sounded tinny and the guitars and vocals were, at times, impossible to hear clearly. To make matters worse, there was a weird digital compression on Matt Heafy’s microphone (presumably to help with the volume of his screamed vocals) which made him sound like a robot when he spoke to the crowd between songs.

Nevertheless, I tried not to let the bad sound bother me and attempted to enjoy their technical proficiency (which was near perfect) whilst they romped through a varied set of old and new. The biggest thing that springs to mind is just how inoffensive and cheesy the band are (for a modern day metal band) - but you get the feeling that they kind of know this and don’t care, just as long as everyone’s having a good time - something I respect the hell out of.

Of the set, their older material (Like Light to Flies, Dying in your Arms) sounded better than their newer material, but they maintain a high level of energy throughout and the crowd are clearly enjoying every minute. I’m still struggling to get into the set and find myself more interested in the lighting guy, stood below me, and his precision control of the intricate effects throughout each song.

Trivium

The set peaked just before the encore when they played Pull Harder on the Strings of your Martyr. It featured some absolutely incredible drumming from newest band member Paul Wendtke, who manages some of the tightest double kick drumming I’ve ever heard followed by a drum solo at the end of the song to end the main set.

The band return to the stage for a pretty solid rendition of “In Waves” for their encore, marred slightly by the fact they stopped abruptly midway through as Matt Heafy jumped off stage to catch a crowd surfer who was plummeting to his death (or a really bad knock to the head). Like true pro’s they picked up where they left off, but by this point, their front of house sound guy had given up it seemed as all manner of speaker crackle/bangs were occurring and most of the people around me were willing the song to end.

Despite Matt Heafy seemingly being the nicest bloke in Metal, his heroic acts and infectious personality wasn’t enough to save what was a pretty boring set overall, save a few highlights; with HoaC completely stealing the show.

A real shame as on record, Trivium are a guilty pleasure and write some terribly catchy tunes, but just couldn’t bring the same vibe to the Academy.

3/5

Reviewed by Jonathan Eve for 365 Bristol - The leading event and entertainment website for Bristol

For a full list of the great events coming up at the O2 Academy check out their What's On section.

Trivium

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