The Crusade is the third studio album by American heavy metal band Trivium. It was released on October 10, 2006 through Roadrunner Records and was produced by Jason Suecof and the band themselves. The album marked a significant musical departure from the metalcoresound of preceding album Ascendancy, with the band instead bringing their thrash metal influences to the fore. Accordingly, vocalist and guitarist Matt Heafy sings with primarily 'clean' vocals throughout "The Crusade", rather than utilizing the 'screaming' style heard on Ascendancy. The Crusade peaked at number 7 in United Kingdom and was later certified silver in for sales in excess of 60,000 copies. In the United States, the album debuted at No. 25 on the Billboard 200 albums chart on its release, selling 31,000 copies in the US in its first week. It has sold over 100,000 copies in the United States.
Background
Before the album was released, three songs from the album were released on the band's MySpace: "Detonation", "Anthem ", and "Entrance of the Conflagration". Music videos for "Entrance of the Conflagration", "Anthem ", "The Rising", "To the Rats", and "Becoming the Dragon" were produced and released on Roadrunner's website. "Anthem " was a hit for the band in the United Kingdom, with the track debuting at number 1 on the UK Rock & Metal Singles Chart and spending several further weeks in the top 10. As of 2019, the single is also the band's only track to break into the UK Singles Chart, peaking at number 40. The track "Detonation" is available on the Xbox 360 release of the video gameGuitar Hero II as downloadable content while the track "Anthem " is featured on Burnout Dominator, Sleeping Dogs and Saints Row 2.
Composition
Influences, style and themes
The album represents a drastic change in style from their previous album, Ascendancy, abandoning the metalcore genre and featuring a style described mainly as thrash metal, progressive metal, and speed metal. As a result, vocalist Matt Heafy used much less screaming and more of a clean vocal style similar to James Hetfield throughout most of the record. Heafy justified this by noting that "the four of us were never into bands that scream and we don't like any of the current bands that scream, so we asked ourselves why we're doing it." Growled vocals would return as a regular attribute on the band's proceeding album, Shogun, although screaming can be found at some points in the album, most notably in "Becoming the Dragon". Lyrical themes on the album include famous killings. "Entrance of the Conflagration" is about Andrea Yates's murder of her five children, "Unrepentant" is about Nazir Ahmad's murder of his three daughters and stepdaughter, "Contempt Breeds Contamination" is about the death of Amadou Diallo, and "And Sadness Will Sear" is based upon the murder of Matthew Shepard. Another common theme on this album is unity or "being united" with songs like Anthem and The Rising. Another lyrical theme that is noticed is in the song "Becoming the Dragon," which is based on the Japanese mythological story of the dragon.
Track listing
All lyrics by Matt Heafy, and all music by Heafy, except where noted.
