“Ember to Inferno,” the Florida Metalcore band Trivium’s first album was released on October 14th, 2003 through Lifeforce Records.

Although being the band’s first album, and being produced with a small budget; the band’s pure talent is shown as the album sounds better than half of the metalcore albums that came out in the same year and most metalcore albums today. Tracks like “Pillar of Serpents” and “If I Could Collapse the Masses” are extremely solid metalcore tracks that would be unexpected to be on a band’s first album through a small record label.

Even though some of the tracks blend together on this record, each track still has its uniqueness in its lyricism from both the band’s frontman Matt Heafy and their old drummer Travis Smith. The album lyrically explores a setting where the world is condemned to burn by a god who finds the nature of human-kind deplorable. Trivium has always had a way with writing songs with brutal vocals and riffs to compliment very intellectual and well-written lyrics.

My favorite track on the album has to be “To Burn the Eye,” as I believe it has the best lyrics and riffs on the album. Additionally, it is the longest track on the album, sitting at 7 minutes, and I think wholeheartedly that this track should be more recognized as one of Trivium’s best songs. Although, since they have so many good songs this would be hard to compare it to their multitude of other excellent albums with even more excellent songs.

As a whole, Trivium’s first album, “Ember to Inferno,” stands as a testament to the fact that Trivium has always been a perfect band and that they’ve never been a bad band. I give this album a 4/5 as it’s an excellent album, but not their best.