As soon as I heard that David Draiman, the legendary ex-vocalist for Disturbed and the current front man for Device, was going to produce Trivium's next album Vengeance Falls I did not hesitate to give it a listen. David Draiman has been singing since 1996 and has left his mark on over eight albums within that time; he has countless songs all written with immeasurable talent. With Draiman's experience and expertise, Trivium should have the resource that they need to produce an amazing album. This was my notion when I began to search for the album. Since the CD has not yet been released, I was only able to find select songs on their YouTube channel. Their first single Brave This Storm immediately caught my attention. Not only was the name of the song enticing, but the song itself was catchy as well.

The first riff of the song is an all out adrenaline rush of thrash at neck breaking speeds. It screams “Trivium” through the heavy, but melodic spinning C# tuning of the instruments. This, thrown together with the speed at which the song is played, creates a sense of perfection. The first few seconds of the introduction are so fast that the audience almost struggles to keep up with the pace. Then the instruments slow into a more melodious symphony. Each note that is played brings along an air of richness along with a perfect blend of high and low notes. By this point, the listener is subconsciously bobbing their head to the song, enjoying the heavy, yet articulate introduction that Trivium brings to the table.

Less than a minute into the introduction, the singing begins. Instead of hearing the singing style of Matt Heafy, there is a hint of David Draiman's vocal style. Unlike the majority of Trivium's songs, there is a lot more singing in this piece instead of their trademark guttural screaming. The most frustrating part for the listeners is that Heafy has adopted a new way of singing from Draiman. Change is good of course, but the change that Trivium has in this song is not. It is as though Draiman has taken his unique singing styles and imposed them too heavily on the musical approach of Mathew Heafy. The band has produced five studio albums up to this point ( not counting the pendent release of Vengeance Falls) and, in many ways, they are still babies in the world of rock because they are continually changing and growing their musical styles. With Draiman's enforcement on their latest album, the band is not able to show the full potential of what Trivium can do.

There is only one part throughout the entire song that vocally sounds like Trivium. There is a ten second line towards the end of the song that actually has the screaming that Trivium is known for. Their creativity in this song is literally compressed into a ten second interval. How is a band supposed to grow when they are limited to such an extent? It feels as though Draiman is suffocating the band by producing this album. He has traded their unique abilities for a mock version of himself. This song is not a true Trivium song, it is a David Draiman song disguised by the voice of Matt Heafy.