TRIVIUM Guitarist Says Returning To Heavier Sound On 'The Sin And The Sentence' Album 'Was Very Natural'

Andrew Pecoraro of Peck's Metal Picks conducted an interview with guitarist Corey Beaulieu of Florida metallers TRIVIUM prior to their May 6 concert at The Filmore Silver Spring in Silver Spring, Maryland. You can watch the entire chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On TRIVIUM returning to the heavier sound found on their early albums with "The Sin And The Sentence":

Corey: "Matt [Heafy, vocals/guitar] was able to scream again after learning a new technique. After getting Alex [Bent] playing drums and having that element where there were no limitations on what we can play, and after touring and playing a lot of the old stuff, it just felt like it was what we wanted to do. We wanted to play some heavy stuff, but also have the aggression and stuff that we've done in the past and also have all the big, melodic stuff. It's using everything that makes up our sound and utilizing it all on the same record."

On whether it was "weird" for TRIVIUM to return to the heavier side of things:

Corey: "No, it was very natural. When writing, that stuff came out easy. Nothing is really ever forced. At the time of making a record, you go with what feels right and what's inspiring you. As I said, we just wanted to play some heavy stuff and play some aggressive stuff. We kind of felt the fans, obviously, from all the past records, not having screaming on the previous record, we just knew that's an element of our sound that people really like what we do, kind of having the meshing of aggression and melody all smashed together. We've, over the years, experimented with what we can do with our sound and utilized everything that we've learned on every record and tried to make a cohesive record that utilizes every aspect of our sound from having stuff that's really aggressive, then some songs, having more focus on some of the melodic elements. Then songs, obviously, that have a marriage of both. It's very natural for us to write like that because that's just the music we play and write very easily. We just wanted to write, obviously, just make a record that I think would really sum up everything that we've done until this point."

On the TRIVIUM songs he prefers to play live:

Corey: "We're pretty active with rotating our setlist around. It's always fun with the old stuff, with Alex coming into the fold and there's a lot of stuff on the old records that we weren't playing for a long time just because… either the person playing drums with us, maybe, there's certain songs... We have a lot of variety of back catalog stuff and there's some stuff that is really, I guess, on the drum side of it, a lot of double bass and fast stuff. Some of the previous drummers, they could handle a lot of the material, but the extreme side of the band was maybe not in their comfort zone. There's certain songs on the old records that we weren't doing live for years just because we knew it wouldn't sound the way it needed to be live, so with Alex being able to play anything from the simpler rock stuff to the really fast double-bass stuff, we've been going back. Our headlining sets, we've been playing a lot of stuff we haven't played in five, seven years, so it's been a lot of fun on that end. For the rest of us, playing these songs for years, then being able to play a song we personally haven't played in five years at least, or a song that we never really played on tour, to put it in the setlist and to surprise fans with stuff that they wouldn't normally hear is a lot of fun to not always play the same stuff. That gets kind of boring. It's always fun to rotate in and out old songs because having the balance the setlist with new and old, we're playing some old stuff that we normally don't play and it makes it fun for the rest of us."

On having confidence in Bent's drumming:

Corey: "Yeah, we've been playing stuff from the old records and they sound amazing live. Being on tour, it's hard to learn and rehearse, so once we get some time off from touring before the next run, we'll be kind of figuring out some songs that we can throw in that would pleasantly surprise some fans. [Laughs]"

On whether there are any hidden meanings within "The Sin And The Sentence":

Corey: "I don't really dig too deep in asking them about every song. I've heard them talk about what they're about and everything. When people read the lyrics, there is a story behind it, of what they were writing about, but I think also the lyrics can be very easily, you can kind of listen to them as a fan and just take it at face value, read the words, hear it, and come up with your own thing with what you want the song to be about. It can be something personal or something you take away from the song. We've done it on some records where we just leave it open to interpretation because we've had so many fans who have come up with what they think the lyrics are. There's always a really interesting perspective where fans and their imagination take them [somewhere]."

Recorded with Josh Wilbur (LAMB OF GOD, GOJIRA) at Santa Ana, California's Hybrid Studios, "The Sin And The Sentence" finds TRIVIUM — Heafy, Beaulieu, Bent and Paolo Gregoletto (bass) — returning with its first new music since its celebrated 2015 LP "Silence In The Snow". The new LP also features the band's first recordings with Bent, who joined the band in 2016.