Martua — the totally excellent grindcore outfit known to idiots everywhere as “that band the drummer from Trivium used to be in” — have decided to call it a day. They’ll play their final show on Sunday, December 4, at at Churchills in Miami, Florida, which blows, because the chances of me getting down to Miami for a Sunday to say my farewells are slim to none.

Oh well. Here’s a statement from sole remaining original member Mitchell Luna, which was originally released to Lambgoat:

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Maruta got a lot of attention last year when their drummer, Nick Augusto, joined Trivium; Maruta sound nothing like Trivium, but whatever gets people talking about them is fine. They are, in fact, a grindcore band, and a killer grindcore band at that; now Invisible Oranges is streaming a new song, “Strain.” Listen here.

The last thirty seconds of the song or so, when guitarist Eduardo Borja starts making his guitar sound the way I imagine Gene Hoglan stomping on a family of live squirrels might, is my favorite part. It’s like the song builds and builds, and then just erupts into physical violence. Excellent.

Listen here.”Strain” comes out off Maruta’s new album, Forward into Regression (See what they did there?),which comes out on Willowtip on March 8. Yep, pre-orders are up.

-AR

P.S. I really like that cover art, too!

When  the line-up for this year’s Mayhem Fest was announced last week, we were told that more bands would eventually be announced. Not to sound like gloating pricks or anything, but we here at MetalSucks already knew that Trivium were gonna be on the bill, even if their involvement hadn’t been made public yet.

Well, now it’s public. Trivium are on the bill. They’ll be on the main stage along with Disturbed, Godsmack, Megadeth, Machine Head, and In Flames; the line-up is rounded out by second stage acts Unearth, Suicide Silence, Kingdom of Sorrow, All Shall Perish, Red Fang, and Straight Line Snooze.

When we saw the band at Mayhem in 2009, they were one of the dominant acts on the second stage; I will never forget wondering “Where the fuck is Paolo Gregoletto?” before realizing that he had jumped into the crowd and was playing amongst the thousands of rabid fans. And Trivium’s live show has increased in quality by 100% since they traded drummer Travis Smith for Nick Augusto last year. (Read Vince’s article on the matter here.) In other words: Trivium’s addition to the bill is a good thing.

Trivium are at Audiohammer Studios in Florida working on a new album with producer Colin Richardson even as I type this; I’ve heard that the goal is to get that record out in time for Mayhem. While we wait for more news of that release, here are Mayhem dates:

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“Shattering the Skies Above,” the new Trivium song the band recorded for the video game God of War III, has found its way onto YouTube, which in this day and age was inevitable, I guess. The song is notable because it marks the recording debut of Trivium’s new drummer, Nick Augusto, late of the grindcore band Maruta. (And if you’re not familiar with Maruta, Cosmo Lee has a good piece on them, mouring their loss of Augusto, at Invisible Oranges.) To be honest, I don’t hear a huge difference in the quality of the drumming here, but then, recorded performances were never really previous drummer Travis Smith’s problem – live shows were. It’s also not clear how involved Augusto was in the creation of this song, given that he’s only been in the band for a short while; I imagine his contributions will be much more noticeable on the next Trivium album.

Check out the song and see what you think:

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I’ve personally never understood all the ire directed at Trivium by metal purists. In Trivium you have a band with above average chops and way better than average songwriting skills led a young phenom who’s a helluva nice guy. What’s not to like — or, at the very least if it just ain’t your thang musically speaking (which is fine), what is there to HATE? Sure, there was that Metallica ripoff album that was pretty ridiculous in concept, but even that album was executed well and the band promptly righted their ship with the next one. As for as more commercially-oriented metal goes there are WAY WAY WAY worse bands than Trivium. Way worse, people. Trivium are the good guys in that fight.

We’ve always felt that the band did lack a bit in the live department, though, mainly because of drummer Travis Smith. Way back in March of 2007, only our third month as a website, Axl reviewed a Lamb of God gig at NYC’s Roseland at which Trivium opened, nailing the problem with Smith thusly:

the fault here appears to lie primarily with drummer Travis Smith, who often seems to be playing a different song from his bandmates. I’m all for fast drumming, but Smith is completely incapable of staying on the beat, and the rest of the band’s performances suffer severely as a consequence of trying to keep up with him.

And this has always been the case with Smith. It seemed like he was always trying to keep up with the ProToolsed performances he laid down on record and couldn’t quite do it. But the other three members of Trivium need worry no more, as rumors of Travis Smith’s departure from the band have now been confirmed. Noisecreep reports:

“We’re really happy to have our good friend and fellow Floridian Nick Augusto join the Trivium family,” Vocalist/guitarist Matt Heafy commented.

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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.

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