trivial act

Progressive metal from Skien, Norway. The bands history hails from 1990 and the band Maltractor. At that time the band performed classic heavy metal in the vein of Iron Maiden and Helloween. The band released one single in 1990. Maltractor eventually became Cemetary Gates, and when the band recorded their first demo the music was much more progressive than before. As the name Cemetary Gates indicated that this was more a black/death metal outfit, the band decided to change their name to Trivial Act. Their debut album got some amazing reviews all over the world. Fandango released the album in Japan. A few years after the album release the band split with the drummer (who joined Red Harvest) and although the band recorded a second album in 2000 the result was a bit disappointing and the album was never released. Since then the band has been put on hold.

MINDSCAPE (1997) FACEFRONT

Norway is well know for it's black metal scene. And all the international media are so caught up in the black metal hype, that most of them are totally ignoring the rest of the metal scene here. So a Norwegian progressive metal band like Trivial Act are sadly overlooked. And that is a shame. On their debut album, named 'Mindscape', they delivered a solid piece of work. They do get the Dream Theater clone stamp by some. But in my opinion that is unfair. Not all of the tracks presented are as good as I had hoped for. But if you are into this area of metal music, you are bound to find at least half of this album pleasing. Kim's vocals may take a bit getting used to, mostly because of the way this album is mixed, he really gets way up from in the sound picture. But the man can sing, so don't let that stop you. Too bad that they never got to release their second album. I've heard at least 1 song from it, and I had high hopes for it.

Killer tracks: Mindscape, Dream Dwell - Part I, Rainbow Valley, Crossing Bridges

Related artists:

Pagan's Mind, Silverspoon, Firewind, Jorn