I am here writing about the loudness war. For those of you who don't know, that is where the recording and mixing engineers are encouraged to make albums louder than the previous ones. Since we long ago reached the loudest they can make it without distortion, it is now standard practice to use compression, where we make the quiet stuff louder.

While at first, louder may seem better, it isn't. The fact is, you can turn your music up to whatever volume you want. So when they make the CD louder with compression, all they are doing is taking out all the nuance between loud and soft. Unlike the volume knob, it is impossible to get that nuance back.

In other words, in the real world, drum hits are always louder than guitars. On a modern CD, everything is equally loud. The drums seem flat and they lack punch.

The biggest example of the loudness war going too far is Death Magnetic. They made that album so loud that there is actually distortion in the sound. Yes, the guitars are supposed to be distorted, but the drums should never be distorted. I have listened to it side-by-side with the version from Guitar Hero III (which was mixed properly), and the difference is unmistakable.

When I looked at Trivium's music in an audio editor, I was unsurprised to find that everything was very loud. It wasn't as bad as Death Magnetic, but they were definitely going with the trend. I'll be honest and tell you that I have not paid for a single Trivium album. Over the years, they grew on me more and more, and I could see myself purchasing their next release. But I would definitely buy remasters of their other releases that were mixed properly.

I would like to pressure Trivium, Roadrunner, and the music industry in general to make better sounding albums. Who's with me?

Oh, and if you intend to leave a reply about how I'm a pussy because I don't like my music loud, don't bother. That is the typical response of someone who really doesn't understand what I'm talking about. You will only make a fool of yourself.