Since releasing their debut studio album Sounding The Seventh Trumpet in 2001 when they were literal teenagers, Orange County metal monsters Avenged Sevenfold have been on a seemingly endless ascent. One of the trademarks of that rise from OC locals to Download Festival headliners and bonafide stadium-level draw has been a constant commitment to sonic exploration and evolution.
From the moment they followed the goth-tinged metalcore of 2003's Waking The Fallen with the Iron Maiden-influenced follow-up City Of Evil that turned them into a mainstream concern, the wildly talented Huntington Beach crew have remained committed to evolving their sound at every opportunity.
The end result of that commitment has seen fans taken on an explorative journey on 2007's self-titled opus, find catharsis amidst the chart-topping metal chaos of 2010's Nightmare, and witness Avenged Sevenfold solidify themselves as an arena proposition with 2013's Metallica-tinged Hail To The King.
With back-to-back US number-one albums in their pocket, the safe bet would have been for Avenged Sevenfold to double-down on the hard rock soundscape, but true to form they followed Hail To The King with the enormously ambitious prog odyssey of 2016's The Stage.
As Avenged Sevenfold gear up to share the latest landmark of their evolution, the recently announced, highly-anticipated eighth studio album Life Is But A Dream...we revisit Avenged Sevenfold's back-catalogue in a quest to identify the best song from each of their seven studio albums.
Album: Sounding The Seventh Trumpet
Best song: Warmness On The Soul
Album: Waking The Fallen
Best song: Unholy Confessions
Album: City Of Evil
Best song: The Beast and the Harlot
Album: Avenged Sevenfold
Best song: A Little Piece Of Heaven
Album: Nightmare
Best song: Nightmare
Album: Hail To The King
Best song: Shepherd Of Fire
Album: The Stage
Best song: God Damn
Avenged Sevenfold are gearing up to release their adventurous new album Life Is But A Dream...on June 2nd. Vocalist M Shadows has been doing the rounds, promoting the album's lead single Nobody and has had some rather interesting things to say about both Nobody and Life Is But A Dream....revealing that they were inspired to experiment and make bold sonic choices by a number of unexpected influences. One of those influences was the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT.
Speaking on their own podcast TRAX, Shadows openly states that 5-MeO-DMT was an influence on the record, which is also heavily inspired by existentialism. You can read his comments, as transcribed by Loudwire below.
"Me and [Synyster Gates] were exploring deeply in psychedelics through the last few years. One of those things, in particular, was 5-MeO-DMT. And I had a very tough experience in Type A personality, ego gets completely demolished, you see yourself kind of leave your body... One thing that I came out of that realizing was that life is so short. Don't put anything out unless it's bold."
"Bold was like, don't just play within your genre. Like yeah, there's a huge difference between Waking the Fall and City of Evil, but they were both playing within a genre. Yeah, it was different, but it was all within a... there was a sphere there," the vocalist continued. "And on this record, we didn't want to be a part of any of that, we wanted to just put out art that just... If we saw something or heard a sound, we wanted to figure out how to get that, and not with our normal tools."
Avenged Sevenfold released our first taste of that bold sonic experiment, the single Nobody, two weeks ago, accompanying the release with an mpressive, animated video, directed by Chris Hopewell.
Nobody sees Avenged Sevenfold build on the more progressive leaning sound of 2016's The Stage. The band’s first official music release since, The Stage, Nobody delivers nearly 6 minutes of tension, groove and dynamics. The song twists and turns beyond conventional songwriting and leans in on discomfort before letting go. The beautifully crafted stop-motion music video, which unfolds like a short film, is a stunning and powerful journey exploring the dichotomy between life and death, love and war, and follows the main character through an existential crisis. Stop motion is a handmade labour of love, often taking 90 minutes just to capture only 2 seconds of footage.
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