The first time I pressed play on Trials and Tribulations I half expected to get pummeled just by looking at that harcore coverart. Evan Ryan Canady’s reputation in Texas metal circles precedes him. Canady fronted a band called Shrapnel before going solo.
Up first is “Ouverture” moves like an early‑70s action film score with the piano and guitar interlocking, then detouring into blaring organs and twangy solos. It’s less “let’s get to the chugs already” and more like watching the curtain rise on a vintage epic. I knew right away this wasn’t going to be a background listen.
When the title track arrives it doesn’t just shift gears; it lights them on fire. Canady balances ambient swells against metallic riffs and then detonates a guitar solo that feels both technical and emotionally necessary. At times it reminded me of a progressive rock ascent, with lyrics about skies lit up by fire and people “walking on the wire”. “Reward of the Wicked,” a mid‑album highlight, taps into slower, almost Sabbath‑like (RIP Ozzy) pacing with nimble guitar lines.
“Ride the Wave” starts with jangling keys and then darkens with the kind of grunge‑adjacent gloom you might hear on early‑’90s mixtapes. It’s a pop hook delivered with a thunderclap. “Vikings,” as its name promises, is all iron‑fisted riffs and chanting voices and yet it never tips into feeling silly. And then there’s “Rise and Shine,” where a sharpened guitar tone slices through the mix like a surgeon’s scalpel. For me that track’s melodic clarity and radiating guitars carried the same euphoric weight as the chorus on Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters.”
It’s worth pausing here to consider how this album was built. Canady wrote, recorded and produced the songs himself, working with his brother Aaron, who mixed and mastered them in early 2025. He also reinvented his guitar rig, building much of the record around an eight‑string instrument with two extra low strings. The low‑end rumble meeting soaring piano defines the album’s contrasts: heavy riffs against symphonic layers and rich vocal harmonies. It’s not just the hardware, though. A track like “Moments of Contention,” the eleven‑minute closer, becomes a miniature opera about a married couple’s fight, complete with piano theatrics and a female vocal cameo by Noelle Canady.
What ties all this together is a sense of muscle memory. This album doesn’t feel like a retro throwback or a parody; it feels like someone who has reverence for metal. There’s nostalgia in the way the riffs recall burned CDs and long drives, but there’s no derivative cosplay. The record’s patience, its desire to create cinematic atmosphere before unleashing chaos, harkens back to progressive metal albums that took their time. By the end of “Sands of Time,” which lands like a final crushing blow, I found myself thoroughly impressed by what Canady created.