Trivium’s Matt Heafy has shared an official video for “Rōnin” from his black metal project Ibaraki. The track, which features My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way, is from Ibaraki's debut album “Rashomon,” which will be available on May 6. Heafy worked on that record with Emperor’s Ihsahn and it also features contributions from his Trivium bandmates.
Heafy commented:
“A rōnin is a masterless warrior. The final two full compositions on ‘Rashomon’ see a significant shift musically. The album as a whole — with the exception of the intro and outro — is actually presented in chronological order of earliest written to latter-most. The actual guitar and bass tracks are a time-capsule of sorts in that their parts — on the final album — is actually from the year they were tracked.
One can begin to see the shifts as the years went on for the writing of the album. ‘Kagutsuchi’/’Ibaraki-Doji’ being written and tracked in 2010/2011, all the way up to ‘Rōnin’/’Susanoo No Mikot’ being written and tracked in 2016/2017.”
He also added the following about working with Way:
“Gerard Way has been a longtime inspiration for me — like Ihsahn and Nergal — I have looked to Gerard as a constant source of motivation to be creative. While Gerard and I may be from different genres than where Ibaraki and black metal stem from — outsiders of sorts — the spirit and intent of our performances is what unites our passion for pushing boundaries.”