Matt Heafy nearly quit Trivium in 2025, ahead of new album “Crown in the Grave”

Trivium frontman and guitarist Matt Heafy has said he came close to leaving the band in 2025 after a tense recording session, likely for the upcoming album “Crown in the Grave”, according to Guitar.com, citing a new Metal Hammer interview.

Heafy describes the band's chemistry falling apart, not because of one person but as “the sum of its parts”. While tracking guitars, he stood up, left the band's rehearsal space, the Hangar, and called his wife Ashley to say he was done after 26 or 27 years. He drove home and switched off his phone, but Ashley persuaded him not to quit and to go back to the studio.

Heafy stayed, but a line-up change followed shortly after, with drummer Alex Bent leaving Trivium in October 2025. Heafy compares it to a break-up that sometimes has to happen for the whole to survive, and says he no longer tries to be safe and perfect on stage, adding that the band now feels “like a brand new band”.

“Crown in the Grave”, Trivium's 11th studio album, is out on 20 November 2026 as the follow-up to 2021's “In the Court of the Dragon”. Its lead single is “Dead Inside of Me”.

Trivium are an American heavy metal band formed in Orlando in 1999, led by Heafy since he was 13. In October, mbuzz reported on the album's announcement.