Avenged Sevenfold Releases New Album 7/27

Rock band Avenged Sevenfold (or A7X among its fans) releases their fifth studio album entitled Nightmare on the 27th of July 2010. The band claims this is their darkest and most emotional album yet, most probably referring to the loss of their beloved brother and drummer James “The Rev” Sullivan.

The band started making the album late 2009 until the untimely demise of Sullivan on December 28, 2009 due to acute intoxication of several pain and anti-anxiety medications combined with alcohol. Whatever they were working on was suspended to mourn the loss of their departed band member. The guys were hesitant to continue making the album without Sullivan. But after a few months, they indicated that they are back in the studio finishing the album. “We decided a few weeks later that we wanted to finish the record and complete his legacy and show people what he had already written since he had written the whole thing,” says vocalist Matt Shadows referring to The Rev, one of the band’s main lyricist and songwriter.

The drums were recorded by Dream Theater’s Mike Portnoy, being one of The Rev’s major influences. Portnoy was happy to push aside his plans with his band and record the drums in place of Sullivan. Portnoy had to learn the beats as The Rev had meant them to be played and said it was a little more complicated to learn them instead of laying down his own style. The band is also scheduled to play in the first annual Rockstar Uproar Energy Tour with Portnoy as their drummer.

The first single “Nightmare” was released on the 18th of May 2010 and it received praises from fans and music reviews. On its first week on iTunes, Nightmare was number one rock song, selling over 23,000. The music video for the single was released on July 17, 2010.

The album is over an hour long at 66:47 with a bonus track called Lost It All that is over 10 minutes long. Some of the songs such as Buried Alive, Welcome to the Family and Lost It All were pre-released by the band on their site and streamed on KROQ. One song called Fiction features The Rev’s voice. He was able to record a sample of the vocals and amazingly enough, it was in the right key and in perfect sync with the band’s recorded version.

The band made a pre-order of a limited version of the album on their website which includes:

• Full Nightmare album on CD
• Expanded booklet featuring lyric sheets from the band and exclusive artwork
• Housed in a synthetic leather bound book with special plated Nightmare crest
• Limited 24″x36″ lithograph entitled Death Bat Anatomy featuring original artwork on special textured paper with embossed lettering
• Instant download of the new single Nightmare
• Download of the demo version of Nightmare which features The Rev on the drum kit

Pre-ordering the album also qualifies one for the Black Ticket contest. 5 lucky individuals will win the limited lithograph signed by each member and 2 tickets to the nearest A7X show.

Here is the track listing for the album:

1. Nightmare – 6:18
2. Welcome to the Family – 4:07
3. Danger Line – 5:30
4. Buried Alive – 6:43
5. Natural Born Killer – 5:17
6. So Far Away – 5:29
7. God Hates Us – 5:21
8. Victim – 7:31
9. Tonight the World Dies – 4:43
10. Fiction – 5:14
11. Save Me – 10:56
12. Lost It All (bonus) – 10:12

By: Tom Skipper

Pictures from avengedsevenfold.com