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Friday, March 29, 2024
The Eagle

Music Notes: "Avenged Sevenfold"

Grade: C-

Avenged Sevenfold "Avenged Sevenfold" Sounds like: A hard-to-digest jumble of genres.

Organs start to play a melodic tune. Suddenly, two electric guitars join in. When this repetitive back and forth begins to build predictability with the listener, it changes again, this time for the worse. A drawn-out scream roars along with the pounding of the drums and the screech of the guitar. This leads into a rant between two vocalists as the song continues in a jarring, unexpected pattern. This is the opening track of Avenged Sevenfold's eponymous new album.

Most of the album falls into the same trap as the opening song; the band cannot decide what type of song to play, so instead, it mixes too many styles, resulting in little success. This creates another problem: the lengthy track times. While other bands have succeeded in creating formidable, lengthier songs, Avenged Sevenfold, for the most part, has not.

The album's hodgepodge composition is especially noticeable when the band strays between singers, which consequents in an unpleasantly drastic change from metal to alternative, or vice versa. While this album is not successful in terms of consistency, it shows the potential of Avenged Sevenfold. "Gunslinger" and "Dear God" show that the vocalists can be used wisely and that the band can create a flow to its songs. These two songs highlight the band's other strength: their guitarists. The acoustic guitar from those songs demonstrate the range of music genres the band can penetrate. The opening solos of such songs as "Critical Acclaim," "Brompton Cocktail" and "Lost" also display their potential as metal guitarists. While this album is hardly recommendable, Avenged Sevenfold's potential must be noted.

-JAMIE BURTON


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