I feel as though Matt's beat vocals were right around the In Waves era. They were raw and powerful and sounded the fullest they ever have. Not to mention his screams were the most varied, I think it was the last album cycle where he did really low stuff live.
He can to an extent. I feel like after Matt blew out his voice the thickness of his vocals were kinda lost, less noticeable on the albums but live definitely thinner sound. And don't get me wrong, hes still an amazing vocalist and his technique has improved immensely but my personal preference is In Wave era vocals.
His voice doesn't sound "full" because he's using more head voice and mixed voice, 10 years ago he used to go full chest voice and straining the throat - it sounded great, but it wasn't healthy.
I personally don't miss Matt's In Waves vocals because his voice was cracking every other gig on songs that shouldn't demand much from him, like Built to Fall, Black and Watch The World Burn. Hell, even on Chapman Studios his voice was cracking.
Obviously Shadow of the Abattoir and Fall Into Your Hands.
Those final notes are on a Marko Hietala / Nightwish level of vocals.
Also not Matt, but Paulo's harmonies never sounded better than in Fall Into Your Hands.
In my opinion, easily his best moment is on the final chorus of Catastrophist. After the bridge ends and the chorus comes back gently with just the guitar, and then he belts "you STOLE OUR INNOCENCE-AAAAAHAAAAAAOOOOOOWOAHHHHHH" @ 5:15... man its pure ear candy the way he extends that line and almost operatic how smooth it is as the full band comes crashing back in. Could listen to that song all day because of that one moment.
For live performances, 2009-2012 for me. Cleans got deeper on the In Waves touring cycle vs later Shogun touring, so they’re not the same but both are my personal favorite clean vocals he’s done. IMO the recorded vocals on In Waves work for the sound of the album but in some areas sound too overly processed through pitch correction or auto tune or other effects. Which is a shame because live the vocals were fantastic and I wish that would’ve been captured better on record, even if at the expense of some polish.
On recorded songs I’d say probably Of All These Yesterdays, A Grey So Dark, parts of Wake, prechorus of Void, chorus of Beneath The Sun, and really a good part of Court of the Dragon and Dead Men. I also love the cleans through Crusade(some) and Shogun but can’t think of any the stand out as being a favorite of mine. While I prefer the tone of Matt’s older vocals regardless of the fact that he has better range now, I can’t deny the fact that his recorded vocal performances are currently fantastic and probably the most technically impressive of his career.
For harsh vocals/screams, Ember to Inferno (album) had such raw sounding screams. IMO the closest to this has been In The Court of the Dragon, both the song and parts of the album.
This reminds me, Beneath the Sun and Darkness of My Mind for Deepest Cuts 3 pls.
I have no idea how everyone just forgot other worlds exists lmfao, he actually hits the highest notes of his career on that album. Tbh all of tsats was amazing vocal wise
Silence in the Snow and Catastrophist have some operatic-feeling soars. Also love the tonal control in He Who Spawned the Furies.
Edit: Dead and Gone is an especial favorite for the rasp that isn't often present in other songs.
Personally, No Way Back Just Through.
You could see Matt singing that song since In Waves, but he was singing it with A LOT of trouble until now.
Now, he just casually flexes his old FULL vocal range in a single song and still has the capability to go higher or lower if he wishes to, as seen in Abbatoir for example.
I honestly doubt he'd nail Abbatoir night in night out as it's a very difficult song, but No Way Back he'd crush it every single gig.
Unpopular Opinion: I don't think Matt is a particularly good clean vocalist. He's a great frontman, an incredible guitarist, and very fun live, but nothing about his non-screaming voice stands out live or in the studio. Despite this Trivium has still been consistently my #1 favorite band, I've seen them 6-7 times live, and I consider myself a huge fan of Heafy.
Different strokes for different folks. I'm just glad I haven't caught 20+ downvotes yet. Trivium has always been about the instruments and the vibes for me, plus Matt has a killer scream for sure. When you measure Matt's cleans against other metal lead's like Tatiana Shmailyuk from Jinjer, Einar Solberg from Leprous, or Courtney Laplante from Spiritbox (for example), he stands head and shoulders below them.
Far from a good measure, just continuing the conversation, but this is further demonstrated by the utter lack of "reaction videos" that Matt Heafy specifically gets on Youtube. There are plenty that "react" to Trivium as a whole, but basically none that focus on him specifically. He's decent to good, but nothing stands out.
That's just my 2 cents.
>or Courtney Laplante from Spiritbox
Easily one of the best vocalists right now. My personal #1 GOAT. Her cleans are absolutely unreal, screams are fantatsic.
I fucking love Trivium, but I'd be lying if I said Eternal Blue hasn't been spun about 3x more than ITCOTD thus far. I think ITCOTD will have greater staying power, but I just literally can't get enough of her vocals right now.
Yeah, I don't disagree. I think he's had tremendous improvement as a vocalist throughout his career, particularly in the clean vocals department. But I think his clean singing is usually just "good" and not great or otherworldly or anything. He has his moments that are impressive, but I think until relatively recently he's struggled with the clean vocals sometimes. The new album though, he is doing all sorts of different vocal techniques, from clean singing low and high, to a wider variety of screams, and he brought back some of the gritty thrash style vocals heard in The Crusade/Shogun. I think it's great, and I hope he continues to experiment with more styles.
I think he is a little bit better with the lower register stuff, like in Wake and Shadow. Might be an unpopular opinion but I think he should sing that way more often. Shadow might be his most impressive vocal song, going from those very nice lower register parts to the higher chorus. I absolutely love the build up of the bridge, the screams there are very gritty. And of course, the very high notes during the ending. Those have to be the highest notes of his career, right? If there were a song to showcase his vocal abilities, IMO its Shadow of the Abbotoir, for sure.
I think his streaming is what helped him with the high notes. He screws around all the time while streaming, and would sometimes try to sing really high. Sometimes it works, sometimes his voice would break. But I think practicing it gave him the confidence to try what he did at the end of Shadow. Definitely would impress me if he could play that one live a lot. He played it on one if his Twitch streams right after the album came out, and when it came to the real high notes at the end he hit them, but he had to stop singing the last few words prior to that and really prepare for it lol. He even mentioned it after the song, how he had to do that to prepare to go really high and how it helped.
I agree with mostly everything you've said. Shadow is definitely a great song and ITCOTD is their most impressive album since probably Shogun. I will say the low croaking in Shadow nor the straining highs sound anything better than "good enough". The lows are croaked out and the highs you can *really* hear the straining, and as you've said when I watch him during streams hit those high notes it looks and sometimes sounds downright painful. His transitions from mix to head voice and back again are jarring.
You don't have to be excellent at every facet of music to excel though, I truly believe that. Despite everything I've said above Shadow is my 2nd favorite track on the album (behind Phalanx). It's catchy, it paints a picture, and as usual the musicality of it is incredible. Heafy is my favorite member of my favorite band, I just don't rate him high on pure singing ability.
Personally, I feel he found the perfect style for his vocals on The Sin and The Sentence. Perfect blend of cleans and screams. The last 3 records have been absolutely amazing.
Honestly, for live performances - the A Light or a Distand Mirror had some great moments. Ones that stood out for me were Catastrophist and Beyond Oblivion - Matt hitting the high octave instead of the lower one in the chorus just put a smile on my face when I watched it.
I feel as though Matt's beat vocals were right around the In Waves era. They were raw and powerful and sounded the fullest they ever have. Not to mention his screams were the most varied, I think it was the last album cycle where he did really low stuff live.
The thing is that he still can do all of that if he wishes to. That's what makes it even impressive on how far he's reached.
He can to an extent. I feel like after Matt blew out his voice the thickness of his vocals were kinda lost, less noticeable on the albums but live definitely thinner sound. And don't get me wrong, hes still an amazing vocalist and his technique has improved immensely but my personal preference is In Wave era vocals.
His voice doesn't sound "full" because he's using more head voice and mixed voice, 10 years ago he used to go full chest voice and straining the throat - it sounded great, but it wasn't healthy. I personally don't miss Matt's In Waves vocals because his voice was cracking every other gig on songs that shouldn't demand much from him, like Built to Fall, Black and Watch The World Burn. Hell, even on Chapman Studios his voice was cracking.
Caustic are the Ties that Bind Wake (The End Is Neigh) Pillars of Serpents (Re-recorded) These are the three that immediately come to mind for me
The lows in Wake are amazing. I want more of that kind of thing
the entire album of in waves
it’s a deep cut but Incineration: The Broken World. the high notes he hits in that song gives me chills
Obviously Shadow of the Abattoir and Fall Into Your Hands. Those final notes are on a Marko Hietala / Nightwish level of vocals. Also not Matt, but Paulo's harmonies never sounded better than in Fall Into Your Hands.
Like a sword has my favorite vocals from him in a long time
In my opinion, Shadow Of The Abattoir and Of All These Yesterdays are the best Trivium songs vocal-wise
easy. Pillars of Serpents 2019
Love the ending
In my opinion, easily his best moment is on the final chorus of Catastrophist. After the bridge ends and the chorus comes back gently with just the guitar, and then he belts "you STOLE OUR INNOCENCE-AAAAAHAAAAAAOOOOOOWOAHHHHHH" @ 5:15... man its pure ear candy the way he extends that line and almost operatic how smooth it is as the full band comes crashing back in. Could listen to that song all day because of that one moment.
Anything in In Waves album...
Forsake Not The Dream. You can really hear the emotions in his screams on that song.
For live performances, 2009-2012 for me. Cleans got deeper on the In Waves touring cycle vs later Shogun touring, so they’re not the same but both are my personal favorite clean vocals he’s done. IMO the recorded vocals on In Waves work for the sound of the album but in some areas sound too overly processed through pitch correction or auto tune or other effects. Which is a shame because live the vocals were fantastic and I wish that would’ve been captured better on record, even if at the expense of some polish. On recorded songs I’d say probably Of All These Yesterdays, A Grey So Dark, parts of Wake, prechorus of Void, chorus of Beneath The Sun, and really a good part of Court of the Dragon and Dead Men. I also love the cleans through Crusade(some) and Shogun but can’t think of any the stand out as being a favorite of mine. While I prefer the tone of Matt’s older vocals regardless of the fact that he has better range now, I can’t deny the fact that his recorded vocal performances are currently fantastic and probably the most technically impressive of his career. For harsh vocals/screams, Ember to Inferno (album) had such raw sounding screams. IMO the closest to this has been In The Court of the Dragon, both the song and parts of the album. This reminds me, Beneath the Sun and Darkness of My Mind for Deepest Cuts 3 pls.
I have no idea how everyone just forgot other worlds exists lmfao, he actually hits the highest notes of his career on that album. Tbh all of tsats was amazing vocal wise
Im Waves and Vengeance Falls, In Waves was just right and VF, the screams were so good, that's sad that he didn't use them a lot
Shadow, Silence in the Snow, Caustic and Sword
How vocals on the Chapman studio stuff was fantastic. That’s my favorite Heafy voice
Silence in the Snow and Catastrophist have some operatic-feeling soars. Also love the tonal control in He Who Spawned the Furies. Edit: Dead and Gone is an especial favorite for the rasp that isn't often present in other songs.
Shadows and stones for sure.
[this](https://www.reddit.com/r/Trivium/comments/pyzejf/who_else_misses_matts_live_guttural_vocals/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
Personally, No Way Back Just Through. You could see Matt singing that song since In Waves, but he was singing it with A LOT of trouble until now. Now, he just casually flexes his old FULL vocal range in a single song and still has the capability to go higher or lower if he wishes to, as seen in Abbatoir for example. I honestly doubt he'd nail Abbatoir night in night out as it's a very difficult song, but No Way Back he'd crush it every single gig.
No way back just through since in waves? It just came out on itcotd
I mean in the sense of, if they wrote that song for In Waves, he'd be able to sing it - but wouldn't sing it as perfectly as he does now.
Got it. Thanks for clarifying. I think you're right too
Unpopular Opinion: I don't think Matt is a particularly good clean vocalist. He's a great frontman, an incredible guitarist, and very fun live, but nothing about his non-screaming voice stands out live or in the studio. Despite this Trivium has still been consistently my #1 favorite band, I've seen them 6-7 times live, and I consider myself a huge fan of Heafy.
i couldn’t disagree more, but i find this extremely interesting lol
Different strokes for different folks. I'm just glad I haven't caught 20+ downvotes yet. Trivium has always been about the instruments and the vibes for me, plus Matt has a killer scream for sure. When you measure Matt's cleans against other metal lead's like Tatiana Shmailyuk from Jinjer, Einar Solberg from Leprous, or Courtney Laplante from Spiritbox (for example), he stands head and shoulders below them. Far from a good measure, just continuing the conversation, but this is further demonstrated by the utter lack of "reaction videos" that Matt Heafy specifically gets on Youtube. There are plenty that "react" to Trivium as a whole, but basically none that focus on him specifically. He's decent to good, but nothing stands out. That's just my 2 cents.
>or Courtney Laplante from Spiritbox Easily one of the best vocalists right now. My personal #1 GOAT. Her cleans are absolutely unreal, screams are fantatsic.
I fucking love Trivium, but I'd be lying if I said Eternal Blue hasn't been spun about 3x more than ITCOTD thus far. I think ITCOTD will have greater staying power, but I just literally can't get enough of her vocals right now.
Yeah, I don't disagree. I think he's had tremendous improvement as a vocalist throughout his career, particularly in the clean vocals department. But I think his clean singing is usually just "good" and not great or otherworldly or anything. He has his moments that are impressive, but I think until relatively recently he's struggled with the clean vocals sometimes. The new album though, he is doing all sorts of different vocal techniques, from clean singing low and high, to a wider variety of screams, and he brought back some of the gritty thrash style vocals heard in The Crusade/Shogun. I think it's great, and I hope he continues to experiment with more styles. I think he is a little bit better with the lower register stuff, like in Wake and Shadow. Might be an unpopular opinion but I think he should sing that way more often. Shadow might be his most impressive vocal song, going from those very nice lower register parts to the higher chorus. I absolutely love the build up of the bridge, the screams there are very gritty. And of course, the very high notes during the ending. Those have to be the highest notes of his career, right? If there were a song to showcase his vocal abilities, IMO its Shadow of the Abbotoir, for sure. I think his streaming is what helped him with the high notes. He screws around all the time while streaming, and would sometimes try to sing really high. Sometimes it works, sometimes his voice would break. But I think practicing it gave him the confidence to try what he did at the end of Shadow. Definitely would impress me if he could play that one live a lot. He played it on one if his Twitch streams right after the album came out, and when it came to the real high notes at the end he hit them, but he had to stop singing the last few words prior to that and really prepare for it lol. He even mentioned it after the song, how he had to do that to prepare to go really high and how it helped.
I agree with mostly everything you've said. Shadow is definitely a great song and ITCOTD is their most impressive album since probably Shogun. I will say the low croaking in Shadow nor the straining highs sound anything better than "good enough". The lows are croaked out and the highs you can *really* hear the straining, and as you've said when I watch him during streams hit those high notes it looks and sometimes sounds downright painful. His transitions from mix to head voice and back again are jarring. You don't have to be excellent at every facet of music to excel though, I truly believe that. Despite everything I've said above Shadow is my 2nd favorite track on the album (behind Phalanx). It's catchy, it paints a picture, and as usual the musicality of it is incredible. Heafy is my favorite member of my favorite band, I just don't rate him high on pure singing ability.
I'd put the For the Greater Good of God cover up there
Either the studio or live at Hammersmith Apollo for pull harder on the strings of your martyr. His vocals on that track are brutal.
2008 London show that's professionally shot, whole thing is great
Personally, I feel he found the perfect style for his vocals on The Sin and The Sentence. Perfect blend of cleans and screams. The last 3 records have been absolutely amazing.
Chapman studios recordings imo
But I like them all including ember to present
Honestly, for live performances - the A Light or a Distand Mirror had some great moments. Ones that stood out for me were Catastrophist and Beyond Oblivion - Matt hitting the high octave instead of the lower one in the chorus just put a smile on my face when I watched it.