When we got Trivium guitarist Corey Beaulieu's Random Shuffle we expected to see at least one or two Pantera songs on there. After all, this is a dude who learned to play by jamming along with records like Cowboys From Hell and Vulgar Display of Power. Then it dawned on us. Beaulieu probably knows those so cold he can listen to them note for note in his head and never needs to place the actual discs in a player again -- kind of the way a lot of people are with Led Zeppelin. Does anyone really need to hear "Stairway to Heaven" again before they die? We've yet to see it on anyone's Random Shuffle and it certainly isn't on Beaulieu's list. Read more...

For those of you who aren't sure what the hell Trivium frontman Matt Heafy is talking about in the band's new single "Throes of Perdition," "hell" is the operative word. Throes of perdition literally means "struggle of eternal damnation," which is something of which Trivium seem to have been spared. Read more...

"Touring the world sucks... the food outside of the USA sucks... people overseas suck..."

That's all I ever used to hear from bands before I had the opportunity to tour outside of the United States. When I started touring outside of North America I thought I would really miss the comforts of our home culture. Couple that with the fact that the touring life sometimes sucks you down into the deep, dark vortex of sitting in the bus all afternoon, lounging in the dressing room all day, playing on the Internet, doing the show, drinking yourself to sleep and repeat.

Now, this works well for some people and I have experienced it myself on many tours, but found it ultimately unfulfilling. To each his own, I guess. However, lately I have made a conscious effort to tour in a new way and embrace the opportunity to explore the open road and see as many new things in as many of the cities we are fortunate enough to visit. Read more...

Trivium have posted the first six songs from their new album, Shogun, for fans to listen to in advance of the September 30 release of the disc. Heavier, darker, angrier, more pissed off, faster and more epic than anything in the band's already impressive catalog, Shogun is incredibly dense, layered and full of atmosphere -- actually, that's not exactly true.

We pulled that last paragraph almost directly from Bleeding Through's promotional bio for their new album Declaration, which also comes out September 30. See, we were originally gonna link to the Bleeding Through album Declaration, but since that's no longer streaming on their MySpace, we figured we'd plug Trivium instead. And since we'd already cut the Declaration description to paste into our Bleeding Through post (the truest action of a lazy blogalist) and we liked the way it read, we decided to insert into our Trivium piece since some of it applies. dense (check), layered (check), full of atmosphere (check), heavier, darker, angrier (well, maybe not).

But why form your opinions from a bunch of words cobbled together by a writer who may or may not have listened to the album before writing the description? Click "more" and listen for yourself. Read more...

"Kirisute Gomen," the first single from Trivium's upcoming fourth album, Shogun, is titled after a Japanese samurai expression that's the equivalent of "I'm gonna kick your f---ing ass" and translates to "I'm sorry but I'm going to have to take your head." It's an accurate description of the impact of the album, but Trivium offer no apologies for their brand of brutality.

Unlike 2006's The Crusade, which contained an abundance of melodic vocals and even an '80s-style metal anthem, Shogun is direct and uncompromising, blending the guitar hooks of The Crusade with the metalcore savagery of 2005's Ascendancy. And while Trivium still draw from the lessons of Metallica, Megadeth and Pantera, songs like "Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis" and "Down From the Sky" suggest they've finally discovered their own voice -- one which will likely have its own impact on the next generation of thrash-inspired metal warriors.

In our exclusive podcast interview with Trivium frontman Matt Heafy, we discussed his Japanese ancestry, the growth the band have undergone since The Crusade, the creation of the new songs, recording in Nashville with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Foo Fighters, Death Angel, Shadows Fall) and the politics of metal. Click "more" to stream or download the podcast. Read more...