This very artfully filmed video of Matt Heafy recording vocals for the new Trivium album doesn’t actually tell us very much about the music, which isn’t really audible. I mean, I guess we now know that there will be screaming on the record, but that’s about as surprising as the fact that the sun came up this morning, so, yeah.

But whatever. The band apparently just finished recording their new album, and they’re doing Mayhem this summer, so, presumably, we’ll get to hear new music soon enough. In the meantime, what I really wanna know is, is there a bucket in the studio for Heafy to spit into? Is he such a badass that he just spits on the floor? These are the kinds of questions I’m going to ask if I ever interview him again. I am a probing and insightful journalist.

-AR

[via Metal Underground]

So let’s say you need to make a music video but you don’t have a very big budget — how can you spice your clip up so it’s not just another performance vid?

A Day To Remember came up with a pretty clever solution: they got all their friends to be in the video, taking turns looking right into the camera and lip synching along for a few moments. Oddly enough, a lot of those friends are metal royalty — including The Red Chord’s Guy Kozowyk, Trivium’s Matt Heafy, As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis, The Acacia Strain’s Vincent Bennett, and whomever is playing Andrew WK this week — despite the fact that A Day to Remember aren’t metal at all.

This was a smart move if you ask me, ’cause otherwise a misanthropic metal d00d such as myself probably never would have watched the video, let alone actually kinda-almost smiled. It looks like everyone is having fun, and fun begets more fun, y’know?

-AR

[via Metal Injection]

If you hit up Trivium’s most recent U.S. tour with Chimaira, you may have noticed an absence of drummer Travis Smith. When the tour started, the band said that Smith “will not be joining us on this leg and is home taking care of some personal business.” Filling-in for him on the tour was his drum tech, Maruta’s Nick Augusto.

Meanwhile, we’d heard some rumors from a pretty reputable source that Smith wasn’t coming back at all. We didn’t say anything at the time ’cause sometimes someone tells you something off the record and it’s not cool to print that kinda thing (even we’re not that dickish)… but now that Metal Underground is reporting the rumor, fuck it. We don’t think Smith is coming back to Trivium.

Click to read more…

It’s Labor Day weekend here in the U.S., which means we’re shuttering the Mansion early this week, and won’t be back ’til Tuesday. We’re sure you’ll find some way to live without us.

Here’s some shit that happened this week:

• We debuted a new track from Salome.
• Sigh’s Mirai Kawashima sent in his final guest-blog from the studio, and revealed the track listing for the band’s upcoming album, Scenes from Hell.
• We chatted with Trivium’s Matt Heafy, The Black Dahlia Murder’s Trevor Strnad, Job for a Cowboy’s Brent Riggs, and All That Remains’ Phil LaBonte.
• We celebrated the triumphant return of Beavis & Butt-Head, and decided that in their particular relationship, Vince is the Beavis to Axl’s Butt-Head.
• Tom Araya thinks Dave Mustaine is a dick, Kerry King thinks Dave Mustaine is a dick, Scott Ian thinks Kerry King is a dick, and everyone in Dimmu Borgir thinks that everyone else in Dimmu Borgir is a dick.

Alright. I’m going to enjoy a little sunshine while I still can. See ya Tuesday!

-AR

Having recently spoken with Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu, we hadn’t scheduled an interview with the band during our trip to scary Camden, NJ for this year’s Rockstar Mayhem Festival. But upon arriving we ran into Heafy in the lobby, and since he was between interviews at the moment we decided to roll the tape and do a quick impromptu update interview. And not for nothin’, Heafy’s such a nice guy, a great interviewee, and his band’s set was one of the most energetic of the day.

Heafy told us about how the Rockstar Mayhem Tour had been going for them so far, the karaoke and dance music parties that have ensued after hours, the band’s upcoming touring plans, and the songs he’s been working on for the next Trivium album. Our quick chat, after the jump.

Click to read more…

So following yesterday’s suggestion from Matt Heafy that fans create a ten song mix of the “best” Trivium songs, Vince and I exchanged a few e-mails and actually did come up with a ten song Trivium mix. Of course, narrowing even a four album discography down to just ten songs is a challenge – there’s some great Trivium songs not listed here, and we’ve completely shortchanged Ember to Inferno. Still, this is our recommendation for what songs we’d put on this ten song mix.

Also worth noting: this is in complete chronological order, with no regard for how you might change it up a little.

1. Click to read more…

Trivium’s Matt Heafy loves Twitter, and he wants you to use it to illegally spread the band’s music! Mr. Heafy (@matthewkheafy) is actually quite the Twitterer (Tweeter? Twatter?), and he’s been updating his Twitter account like the dickens with everything from his man-crush on Adam Lambert to his frustration with Facebook. Heafy’s latest messages to Twitter-nation, posted yesterday, attempt to harness the viral nature of the Interwebs to illegally spread Trivium music. Ruh-roh!

Not even the 140-character limit can stop this guy. Here’s his series of six tweets, shown with the first one at the top for the sake of continuity. Imagine Heafy’s So-Flo “duuude” drawl as you read these in your head:

everyone! killer idea. Paolo came up with it/ I endorse it! spread this word to all trivium fans… burn a cd with the best 10 trivium…

… songs. make tons of copies, pass it to everyone. let’s recreate the tape trade virally and all that shit. a perfect 10 tracks…

… name it trivium. pass it to people. maybe work and school friends first, then maybe locally? I think this could spread the gospel better

Click to read more…

I don’t really understand all the vitriol that gets directed at Matt Heafy. Maybe I’m missing something; even if you don’t like Trivium’s music, I’m not aware of any incident that should make Heafy worthy of the Durstian levels of hatred people have towards the dude.

To that end: Metal Underground posted the below video of Heafy breaking up a fight from the stage at a show last week. I’m sure someone will say “Well, it’d be way cooler if he’d jumped into the crowd to break up the fight,” but we all know that that person is legally retarded, so whatever.

-AR

Even before we were an “industry type” (I think we can safely call ourselves that now), I loved the fact that Roadrunner Records posts their staffers and some of the artists “best of” lists every year; these people work at/with one of the biggest metal labels out there, so it’s pretty interesting to see what they were grooving on from year to year.

The 2008 lists are on Roadrunner’s website now. Here are some highlights:

Click to read more…

Trivium’s new album, Shogun, gets its official release on Roadrunner a week from today, but the entire album is currently streaming on the band’s MySpace page.

If you’re one of the people who showed enough restraint not to download the album when it leaked a little while back, here’s your chance to preview before you buy. Or, if you’re one of those people who hates Trivium the way Sarah Palin hates science, here’s your chance to know thy enemy, as the saying goes. Y’know, in the unlikely event you wanna try and make an intelligent argument against the band, instead of just calling them and their fans “fagets.”

Also, read our interview with Trivium’s Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu here.

-AR

Trivium’s new video, “Down from the Sky,” has hit the web, and apparently, director Ramon Boutviseth really likes the color green, or the movie Saw, or both.

ANYWAY, I actually really like the video. If you’re gonna incorporate found footage for the sake of trying to give your clip an apocalyptic feeling, using vintage newsreels is a much better move than using newer stuff. And while this isn’t necessarily the song I would have chosen to represent the band’s new album, Shogun, enough people have already heard some of the other stuff from the album that I s’pose it doesn’t really matter.

One thing I could live without in this video: the part at the beginning where the band is doing those hero poses. I know it’s a video and a certain amount of staging is to be expected, but come on, what year is this?

Roadrunner will release Shogun on September 30. While you’re thinking about it, why not read our interview with Matt Heafy and Corey Beaulieu?

-AR