TRIVIUM Unleashes Their Ascend Above the Ashes Tour Upon Milwaukee’s Eagles Ballroom

By: Arianna Karnezis

On an unusually warm November Saturday evening, Trivium graced Milwaukee’s gigantic four-stage venue The Rave/Eagles Club for the first time in nearly 20 years, this time playing in the 4,000-capacity Eagles Ballroom. Being a Chicago suburbanite, I made the two-hour trek to the Fresh Coast to fulfill my three-year-long goal of photographing Trivium after seeing them live at Radius with Between the Buried and Me and Whitechapel in 2022. This time around, the band was not only celebrating 20 years of their major label debut and their sophomore album that put them on the map of modern metal music, Ascendency, but also offering up their latest record, the three-song EP Struck Dead. Joining them on this excursion were UK metal up-and-comers Heriot and the modern metal legends Jinjer. 
    Kicking off this incredible show was Heriot, showcasing their talents in the United States for the first time ever on this tour. Formed in Swindon, England, in 2014, vocalist Debbie Gough rounded out this band after joining five years later, and the band would record three EPs before releasing their first full-length record, Devoured by the Mouth of Hell, in 2024. The band was a fitting choice to open the show, and despite a 30-minute set, they made a lasting impression on their audience. Gough and bassist Jake Packer’s powerful screams and their heavily inspired sound mixed classic metal with a smidgen of hardcore, giving them admittedly a common sound of modern metal, and yet their passionate stage presence set them apart from many of their counterparts. This band is clearly ready to grow in their scene, and we can only hope to see more of them as a result of this tour.
    Up next was Jinjer, the established progressive metal act hailing from Ukraine. The band has enjoyed renowned success in the metal community for the last decade, and their performance showed absolutely no signs of them relenting. They too have spent 2025 supporting a new album, their fifth studio effort, Duél, and the band’s setlist actually consisted mostly of songs from this record. In spite of their struggles with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine–Jinjer was forced into hiatus in 2022 followed by relocation to America–the band has persevered, and Duél has drawn inspiration from their experiences with this war. Notably, their penultimate song in their setlist, “Someone’s Daughter,” tells the story of a woman trained to become a soldier. Jinjer’s melodic instrumentation combined with vocalist Tatiana Shmayluk’s beautiful and haunting vocals (both clean and screaming) add to the range of stories they tell. As someone who was unfamiliar with Jinjer’s discography, I found it regrettable that I have yet to see a headlining show of theirs. As captivating as their setlist was, it would have heightened the experience of seeing Jinjer live to hear a wider range of tracks from their 15-year-long career. Nonetheless, their performance has put them on my radar, even if I am late to the party.
With beautiful medieval imagery as their backdrop, the members of Trivium greeted the audience one by one, beginning with the band’s new drummer Alex Rüdinger–formerly of Whitechapel and a prime example of things falling into place, as the band had invited him to join back in 2016, but he was forced to decline because of timing. After bassist Paolo Gregoletto, guitarist Corey Beaulieu, and vocalist Matt Heafy soon followed, the band immediately dominated the stage with “In Waves.” The audience erupted into crowd-surfing, moshing, and singing along to one of the band’s staple tracks, and the ballroom shook with an implacable energy that only seasoned yet young metal bands can truly do. Afterward, in accordance with their continual celebration of 20 years of their acclaimed album Ascendancy, Trivium quickly launched into “Like Light to the Flies.” Their setlist would contain a mix of old and new hits and more staples such as “Strife” from 2013’s Vengeance Falls, “Into the Mouth of Hell We March” from 2008’s Shogun, and the inspirational “Until the World Goes Cold” from 2015’s Silence in the Snow. Sadly, this setlist would not include any tracks from their latest two albums, 2020’s What the Dead Men Say or 2021’s In the Court of the Dragon–it was also a surprise to only hear one song from the chart-topping In Waves. Nevertheless, this tour’s setlist will absolutely please both longtime and newer fans alike.
Before jumping into one of two of their newest singles, “Bury Me With My Screams,” vocalist Matt Heafy took a minute to reflect on the last few years. After the final leg of their tour supporting In the Court of the Dragon in 2023, the band announced they would be taking a break for a couple of years to rest. During that time, the band focused on revamping an old hangar in Orlando, Florida, they had purchased in 2020 to turn into a home studio. During this short intermission, Matt Heafy mentions he had also used that time to work on himself, to “become a better father, better husband, and better bandmate”--in short, the band saved themselves from burnout so they could come back stronger than ever, and the evidence was so clear in their performance. It is always rejuvenating and relieving to see a band in their prime, and Trivium is still at the height of their career, even when they choose to take a break for themselves, something that sadly is risky for bands to do in this era of social media where relevancy means constant content creation. Nonetheless, when Trivium returned, they made sure to make their comeback a loud one. At this moment, their set had reached its halfway point, and their medieval landscape disappeared and was replaced by a three-dimensional backdrop of their Ascendancy album cover, complete with a 25-foot inflatable mummified angel/demon that has become as easily recognizable as Heafy’s vocals in the last 20 years. Added in between “Bury Me With My Screams” and their latest single “Struck Dead” was Ascendancy’s “A Gunshot to the Head of Trepidation,” and the latter half of their setlist were also strengthened with “Dying in Your Arms” and “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr,” giving old-school fans a massive hit of nostalgia and giving Heafy the opportunity to thank all of Trivium’s fans, “whether you’ve been around for a year, two years, twenty years, twenty-five years,” and to promise more surprises up their sleeve coming in the next couple of years.
The band of course signaled their curtain call with three of their most notable songs: “The Heart from Your Hate,” “Down from the Sky,” and “The Sin and the Sentence,” easily one of the most powerful closers to a metal show–the audience roared the lyrics back at Heafy just before the band took their final bow for the night, and it already felt as if the show ended too soon. Whatever is coming next for Trivium, it seems they have indicated they are ready to bring their best to their fans as they always do, both onstage and on the road.

HERIOT

JINJER

TRIVIUM