Album Review
Avenged Sevenfold - NightmareAvenged Sevenfold – Nightmare

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
 Band Members

M. Shadows
Zacky Vengeance
Synyster Gates
Johnny Christ
 Track Listing
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
 Band Related Links
Avenged Sevenfold Myspace
 Review Score Code
- Top Cheese
- Brilliant
- Pretty damn good
- Ok I guess
- What Was That?