Trivium, In Flames, Orbit Culture, and Frozen Soul

Trivium began with a talent show at the Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs, Florida. Way back in the year 2000, one of its acts was a fourteen year old guitar player by the name of Matt Heafy, whose performance of Metallica’s “No Leaf Clover” caught the eye of Trivium’s very first singer Brad Lewter. Impressed, the vocalist asked him to try out and soon after, Heafy was an official member of the band.

The band started gigging soon afterwards and after some time, Lewter left the band, allowing Heafy to take over lead vocal duties as well as playing rhythm guitar. It was with this set up that Trivium went into the studio and recorded their debut album “Ember To Inferno”, releasing it in October 2003. The album was enough to tour with Machine Head off the back of it, who in turn, introduced them to the folks at iconic metal label Roadrunner Records.

It was their second record however, that made the band what they are today. Released on Roadrunner in March 2005, “Ascendancy” wasn’t a hit immediately but thanks to positive critical reception, word of mouth and an utterly astonishing set at the 2005 Download Festival, it went on to make their name on the world stage. Over 100,000 copies sold in the U.K alone later, it became one of the decade’s touchstone metal albums.

Since then, they have remained near the top of the metal world as one of the century’s first true success stories. The likes of "Like Light to the Flies", "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" and "A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation" are new metal standards that thousands of garage bands practise to this day. There really is no higher compliment than that when it comes to rock and roll. No true metal head can go wrong with a Trivium gig, highly recommended.

Jesper Strömblad founded the Swedish group alongside another band he was part of. In 1993, Strömblad decided to dedicate all of his time to In Flames. That same year Glenn Ljungström on guitar and Johan Larsson on bass guitar joined for the first In Flames line up.

Their first album was released in 1994 called 'Lunar Strain'. The trio had to use different singers to help out, as they didn't have a lead vocalist. But in 1995 they got Björn Gelotte to join the band as a drummer, and Anders Fridén as their full time vocalist. The official one-piece metal band was born.

Their music uses harmonized lead guitar melodies and screamed/ growled vocals. On Soundtrack to Your Escape, the band used less guitar melodies so they were able to incorporate more synths, but this seemed to be only a short phase in their music. In Flames' lyrics have varied over the years as well. In some of their releases like 'The Jester Race', they seemed to talk about astrology and mankind. But in later albums such as 'Come Clarity' the band specifically sang about their personal issues and life problems.

In Flames were big influences to many metal bands. Darkest Hour, Slowlife and Trivium are amongst the few that name In Flames as a huge influence on their melodic death metal style.