Trivium are one of those bands that doesn't really “look their age,” so it may be hard to believe they are, in fact, grizzled veterans of the American metal scene now, with almost two decades and eight studio albums already under their belts.

Band leader, vocalist and guitarist Matt Heafy was still a teenager when he started jamming with drummer Travis Smith in 1999, and recorded an album-length demo three years later. Released as Ember to Inferno by Germany’s Lifeforce Records, the album turned heads across the metal community and earned Trivium a chance to tour with Machine Head, after recruiting second guitarist Corey Beaulieu and bassist Paolo Gregoletto.

A jump to Roadrunner Records came next, and Trivium officially arrived with their 2005 sophomore record, Ascendancy, becoming the latest New Wave of American Metal hopefuls with their infectious blend of thrash, metalcore and death metal. Some excitable observers even posited that Trivium looked like the next Metallica, but the band itself contradicted such claims with their uneven third opus, The Crusade.

Fact is, Trivium wanted to be nothing but themselves, as shown through ensuing efforts like 2008’s challenging Shogun, the impressively well-balanced In Waves, and the increasingly polished follow-ups, Vengeance Falls, Silence in the Snow and The Sin and the Sentence. Each of these witnessed a healthy amount of experimentation, moving both closer and further away from commercial trends, and showed that Trivium were, above all, confident about following their instincts.

We’d be foolish to expect differently in the years ahead, but for now we pause to rank Trivium’s albums, from worst to best.

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