Avenged Sevenfold

[EndOfAnEra]

So I've always had kind of a meh attitude about Avenged, but some of their stuff doesn't seem too bad. I've heard the expected songs (Afterlife, Beast and the Harlot, Bat Country), but does anyone have any other suggestions?

[Lj.]

Basically their latest album is good from start to finish. I was never a big AX7 fan before, I couldn't get into them, but this last CD, It's one of my top favorites now.

[Avenged Probably]

As you can probably tell by my name, I'm a huge Avenged Sevenfold fan.

Don't bother with Sounding the Seventh Trumpet unless you're into the hardcore kinda stuff. (If you're not, still listen to 'streets' 'warmness on the soul' and 'darkness surrounding' - most people should enjoy those tracks).

Waking the Fallen is still a 'screamy' type album, but easily enjoyable if your not into that kinda thing.

City of Evil gets rid of the screams and goes sick on the guitars, like totally crazy. Also a massive helping of backing vocals on this album. If you listen alot though, other than the sreamingness (sp) its not all that different to the previous album.,

Avenged Sevenfold. Self titled album. A few screamy bits, not much though. Awesome guitar bits, but simple parts too, in order to move the songs along and not make the too OTT. Absoloubtely brilliant vocals and drums on this album. Its a fucking great album in every sense. I don't know If you appreciate the same If ya haven't heard the previous albums, but its super awesome.

In the next month they are releasing a DVD/CD combi. The DVD is a live concert (I have seen them live 4 times, they're brilliant!) cd is full of tracks from their latest album that they didnt release. It also has a few cover songs including 'Walk by Pantera' and 'Flash of the Blade by Iron Maiden'

Listen and enjoy!

[Gabriel]

A quick listing of songs from A7X for you... if you're indifferent mostly, a full album isn't a good idea, especially not the new one. I love it, but not a good idea.

Warmness on the Soul

Unholy Confessions

Chapter Four

Second Heartbeat

I Won't See You Tonight, Part 1

Beast and the Harlot

Burn it Down

Bat Country

Seize the Day

Almost Easy

Scream

Dear God

The first song is from Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, which is mostly a lot of screaming, but Warmness is a piano ballad, which is fucking awesome.

The next four are from Waking the Fallen. If you like them, grab the whole album. The rest isn't as catchy, but it's just as good.

The third group is from City of Evil...if you like them, grab that whole disc. It's easily the best album they've put out from song one to the end.

The last three are from the self titled, which is all over the fucking place in terms of musical styles... so if you like any of what you get from this, grab that too.

[Gazz]

Chapter Four

I won't see you tonight pt.1

To end the rapture

Seize the day

Warmness on the soul

That should start you of on their earlier stuff

[Avenged Probably]

Yeah, a list of recommendations;

-Unholy Confessions

-Chapter Four

- Eternal Rest

-Second Heartbeat

-I won't see you again tonight part 1

- The End of all things

-Trashed and Scattered

-Strength of the World

-MIA

-Critical Acclaim

-Almost Easy

- Scream

- Unbound

- Brompton Cocktail

- A Little Piece of Heaven

- Dear God

-Crossroads

- Flash of the Blade

[Cactus Drags]

Anything post-Waking the Fallen isn't worth listening to, they completely changed once they got noticed. They have some catchy stuff now, but the last few singles they've put out have been generally dire. I do recommend Waking the Fallen though, great album. And they performed it well live when I saw them supporting Lostprophets in '04. I was quite surprised when I saw them at Download a year or so later, and they were utter wank. And don't think I'm just hating on the trend, I just got into that one album and felt pretty let down with the stuff they've put out since.

[Turbo Yannis]

I used to like A7X before I had pubes.

[caucasianheat]

I volunteered for a time at a university campus radio station in high school. CDs would come in by the assload daily and there was always a heavy stack to be reviewed. A group of people would sample the first thirty seconds of the first four to five tracks (a flawed process, I know) and determine whether or not it was worth holding on to. Anything that wasn't went directly to the garbage. I scored a ridiculous amount of CDs during my time there, most of which were picked from the trash. They ranged from hilariously bad (like white girl gangsta rap and a guy singing 23 different songs about cunt to the beats on his Casio) to stuff I actually got into at the time like The Bronx and Avenged Sevenfold's Waking the Fallen, which was probably the best thing I ever landed there besides a Thrice/Thursday split 7".

I dug a bunch of the tracks on Waking the Fallen, but sort of burned out on the style of music and haven't taken a liking to their more recent stuff. I can't say I've actually listened to anything from their catalogue in a year or more, but I'll always remember seeing that weird cover art in amongst the other unloved CDs in the bottom of a full Rubbermaid container.

[Gabriel]

Anything post-Waking the Fallen isn't worth listening to, they completely changed once they got noticed. They have some catchy stuff now, but the last few singles they've put out have been generally dire. I do recommend Waking the Fallen though, great album. And they performed it well live when I saw them supporting Lostprophets in '04. I was quite surprised when I saw them at Download a year or so later, and they were utter wank. And don't think I'm just hating on the trend, I just got into that one album and felt pretty let down with the stuff they've put out since.

M. Shadows' voice went to complete shit because of the way he was screaming. If he didn't stop, he'd likely be mute at this point, so they had to take a step back and change the way he presented his vocals...which changed a lot of the sound of the band, but I personally prefer City of Evil - present over start - Waking the Fallen.

This happens a lot to vocalists who weren't trained to do what they do properly... they hurt their voices to the point where they absolutely have to change, and then whatever they release afterwards is going to be considered "selling out".

It wasn't that they decided to go radio-rock when they started getting attention from Waking the Fallen and that tour... it's that they had to make a change, or risk losing their frontman prematurely to throat injury.

[TheRyno]

I was huge into Waking The Fallen when it came out. Because of it, I looked for a copy of Sounding The Seventh Trumpet for years. I liked it but not as much as WTF. City of Evil came out and even though they changed their sound, I still dug it. But soon enough, they changed their image, started getting GRILLZ and shit and having 14-year-old girls calling them their like most favorite-est band OMGZ! Now, I couldn't even give a shit about the self-titled album. Haven't heard a song except for some of "Almost Easy", in which I liked some of the drum fills but that was about it.

I'm hoping that ignoring them now will keep my past memories of them pure, or something corny like that.

[Gene Kiniski]

I like Sidewinder.

[KevinStorm]

"A Little Piece of Heaven" is the best song I've ever heard them do.

[gunnar hendershow]

Tried way too hard to fit into the "norm" once they got noticed and left what made them good. Gained a bigger audience thanks to clever marketing, and now just look like a bunch of white trash cocaine addicts. It's unfortunate, I was a big fan.

[RoyWill Rumble]

Sorry to say, but even if your vocal chords are near the point of no return, if you learn how to scream 'properly', their may be a little strain, but not enough to permanently damage anything. If a singer or screamer can't do that, then fuck 'em.

[Rich]

Anything post-Waking the Fallen isn't worth listening to, they completely changed once they got noticed. They have some catchy stuff now, but the last few singles they've put out have been generally dire. I do recommend Waking the Fallen though, great album. And they performed it well live when I saw them supporting Lostprophets in '04. I was quite surprised when I saw them at Download a year or so later, and they were utter wank. And don't think I'm just hating on the trend, I just got into that one album and felt pretty let down with the stuff they've put out since.

M. Shadows' voice went to complete shit because of the way he was screaming. If he didn't stop, he'd likely be mute at this point, so they had to take a step back and change the way he presented his vocals...which changed a lot of the sound of the band, but I personally prefer City of Evil - present over start - Waking the Fallen.

This happens a lot to vocalists who weren't trained to do what they do properly... they hurt their voices to the point where they absolutely have to change, and then whatever they release afterwards is going to be considered "selling out".

It wasn't that they decided to go radio-rock when they started getting attention from Waking the Fallen and that tour... it's that they had to make a change, or risk losing their frontman prematurely to throat injury.

Thought the voice thing was a cop out and if wikipedia is to be believed:

City of Evil strayed away from the band's previous metalcore sound and M. Shadows chose to abandon the screaming vocals from the first two albums. Although Shadows acknowledges that he sustained throat and vocal cord damage after Waking the Fallen and later required surgery to help correct the problem, he states that the change in vocal style was not a result of this issue.

I am with the people who are saying that they enjoyed Waking the fallen but struggled afterwards. The more latest stuff I have heard has been pretty dire to be fair, and the way the band's image is being presented at the minute is a complete turn-off to me aswell.

[Gabriel]

While he may not want to acknowledge it, saying that his vocal injuries had no effect on the new style is him just trying not to place any fault on anything other than himself. He and the band are extremely critical of what they do.

The way I look at it... most big time bands had an album or two that sounded different before they hit it big. Pantera was a fucking hair metal band before they hit it big when they changed things up.

Maybe it's because I'm a hair metal fan, and love the Guns n' Roses, Motley Crue, etc, type stuff... but City of Evil is a fucking badass record.

Seventh Trumpet and Waking the Fallen were both extremely good, but there are dozens of other bands active now who play the same style of stuff and do it just as well. But there's only one Avenged Sevenfold. They've almost become a brand as much as a band at this point, and while they'll lose a lot of fans along the way for the cliche reasons that bands lose fans... they're also swimming in money, girls, gold records and critical acclaim.

[Liam]

Critical acclaim? Did you see any reviews for their latest album?

Add me to the crowd of people who enjoyed Waking The Fallen, and find myself pretty apathetic to anything after that.

[Gazz]

Thing is, people talking about the change in vocal style, Shadows is a better singer than he is screamer, the guy has a powerful set of lungs on him and thats one of the things thats allowed them to be more successful than everyother screamy metalcore band.

[Nerf]

Self titled album is one of the worst pieces of music i've ever heard.