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Review |
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Avenged Sevenfold have just released their fifth
studio album ‘Nightmare’ and it has
to be their most emotional, important and hardest
to create album ever as towards the end of 2009
Avenged Sevenfold had all the instrument parts written
for ‘Nightmare’ and also had the lyrics
written for the opening track ‘Nightmare’
with M. Shadows knowing that the album was going
to be a concept album but not knowing what direction
to take the songs and lyrics so the band set off
for a short break over Christmas and then on the
28th December tragedy struck as the bands long term
drummer The Rev passed away to the shock of his
family, the band, the fans and pretty much anyone
who had heard of The Rev, and for a few weeks after
the death of The Rev there was a lot of doubt surrounding
the future of Avenged Sevenfold and the release
of their fifth studio album, but the band became
stronger and stuck together and decided to finish
the album in respect to the rev which then gave
M. Shadows the hardest job ever writing lyrics for
the other 10 songs on the album but he did it and
has come up with the most emotional and meaningful
songs that Avenged Sevenfold have ever created.
The album opens with the title track ‘Nightmare’
and it starts off with an eerie horror movie style
chime which builds up in pace over time until
the guitars charge up with the drums following
seconds later with M. Shadows screaming “Nightmare”
before taking the song on an almost melodic sounding
radio friendly journey with Synyster Gates fast
paced guitar solos in place to remind people how
good Avenged Sevenfold are when it comes being
catchy yet still loud, the lyrics are well written
yet quite emotional with M Shadows singing “You
should have known the price of evil, and it hurts
to know that you belong here, yeah, no one to
call, everybody to fear, this tragic fate is looking
so clear, yeah” in such a beautiful way.
‘Welcome To The Family’ is a happy
sounding song which sounds so similar to the style
of the music featured on the last Avenged Sevenfold
album, the song flows at such a fast pace and
once again Synyster Gates takes centre stage with
his fantastic guitar work especially during the
solos which rock so hard, the vocals from M. Shadows
chop and change in style throughout the song,
in places they are beautiful and melodic sounding
and in others they are a little bit more aggressive.
‘Danger Line’ is one of my favourite
tracks on the album and is a song that The Rev
will be proud of up in heaven as the opening drums
beats that The Rev wrote are so damn fantastic
and Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy has done
so well in recreating the drum parts that The
Rev wrote but the opening to ‘Danger Line’
has to be the cream of the crop, seconds after
the military style drum beats start up Synyster
Gates let’s rip with his jaw dropping guitar
work, M. Shadows vocals come in moments later
but it is the emotional chorus where M. Shadows
really shines as he howls out “Nothing shocks
you like a bullet hole, leaving my fear on the
danger line, suffering no man should ever know,
leaving my faith on the danger line” however
it is the end of the track which shows true emotion
with each instrument slowly fading out to the
chilling sound of whistles.
‘Buried Alive’ is yet another one
of my favourite tracks from the album it sounds
very much like Metallica from start to finish,
the song starts off sounding very slow but builds
up over time and features plenty of fantastic
guitar solos which come at you in a mad frenzy,
imagine ‘One’ from Metallica and you
will be close to understanding what ‘Buried
Alive’ sounds like.
‘Natural Born Killer’ is the heaviest
song on the album opening with a mad frenzy of
instrumental work which really does rock and as
the song progresses it just gets bigger and better
with M. Shadows singing the chilling lyrics of
“Die alone, this is the one thing that I
won’t do, so say your prayers cause I ain’t
leaving here without you”, if anyone was
worried that Avenged Sevenfold had started sounding
softer over time, this is the song to help reinstall
your faith that Avenged still have it when it
comes to heaviness.
‘So Far Away’ is the first of many
real slow pace songs that feature on the album,
the song is driven by acoustic guitar and is such
an emotional song especially with M. Shadows singing
‘How do I live without the ones I love”.
‘God Hates Us’ is a song which starts
off sounding soft but suddenly goes all out with
heavy screams, growls and fast paced instrumental
work. ‘Victim’ starts off with a church
bell constantly ringing, the song is very yet
another emotional sounding song which changes
from being soft and heavy many times throughout.
‘Tonight The World Dies’ is another
acoustic driven song and a song where M. Shadows
sings his bollocks off and shows every kind of
emotion throughout, if and when this song is played
live I doubt there will be a dry eye left in the
building as it is proper emotional stuff.
One of the biggest tracks on the album is ‘Fiction’
it was the left track ever written by The Rev
and was originally titled ‘Death’
and it is quite a chilling track featuring vocals
of both M. Shadows and The Rev as a beautiful
yet chilling tribute.
The album closes in true Avenged Sevenfold fashion
with a proper epic beast of a track ‘Save
Me’ which runs well into the 10 minute mark
and closes the most powerful yet emotional album
I have heard in a long time in style.
‘Nightmare’ has fully reinstalled
my faith in Avenged Sevenfold, I am going to be
honest and admit that I wasn’t to keen on
their forth studio album ‘Avenged Sevenfold’
as it was such a departure from the sound of the
earlier Avenged Sevenfold album’s but everything
about ‘Nightmare’ is so spot on yet
once again so different from the earlier days
of Avenged Sevenfold but this time around they
have created a chilling album which has a big
horror movie feel and is full of true love and
emotion and features such fantastic artwork throughout,
I truly feel that I have just found my album of
the year here.
5/5
Review by Trigger |
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| Band
Members |
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M. Shadows
Zacky Vengeance
Synyster Gates
Johnny Christ |
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| Track
Listing |
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1. Nightmare
2. Welcome To The Family
3. Danger Line
4. Buried Alive
5. Natural Born Killer
6. So Far Away
7. God Hates US
8. Victim
9. Tonight The World Dies
10. Fiction
11. Save Me |
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| Band
Related Links |
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| Review
Score Code |
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- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
-
What Was That? |
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