Album Review: Sevenfold defies critics with revamped sound
Avenged Sevenfold returns with a flourish in their self-titled fourth release. Despite pushing the limits with new and surprising ideas, the majority of the album’s music retains the power chord-heavy sound.A church organ intro on “Critical Acclaim” foreshadows the album’s new musical pathways. Avenged Sevenfold refers to religion and the Bible frequently. While by no means a Christian band, the references complement the band’s political lyrics. “Critical Acclaim” contains a scathing speech stating, “So how does it feel to know that someone’s kid in the heart of America has blood on their hands/towards all those pompous assholes who spend their days pointing fingers.”
With each progressive album, singer Matt Sanders (also known as M. Shadows) is pushing his voice less and less. Despite this, Shadows’ cleaner sound is a pleasant change. Like distorted guitar, after a while you crave something smoother. Shadows’ only downfall is when he frequently bends vowels to an annoying pitch that sounds more like whining than anything else.
The band’s new album begins with “Gunslinger.” Like the soundtrack to a western movie, “Gunslinger” begins with country-style acoustic guitars, blending calmly with Shadows’ new voice. Then the song abruptly jumps into Sevenfold’s traditional heavy metal, complete with pounding drums and epic guitar lines. Shadows is screaming again but with less intensity.
Sevenfold has made a habit of creating original melodies that work well within the confines of metal, but they have perfected their knack for it in this album. “Unbound” is a digression from their metal sound. The verse is laced with classical piano lines and the chorus has such an original melody, Beethoven would blush. The song is almost like a classical masterpiece, laid over with electric guitar and screaming. A choir pulls the entire song together and a young girl’s voice finishes the lyrics.
Sevenfold takes advantage of an entire orchestra for “A Little Piece of Heaven.” It starts with a little sonata performed by clarinets, strings and other orchestra instruments. The song sounds more like a Danny Elfman composition than something metal. It would be perfectly at home as the soundtrack for a dark cartoon. Shadow’s voice is playful and barely recognizable. The band sounded nothing like this in the past.
Avenged Sevenfold
‘Avenged Sevenfold’
Release Date: Oct. 30
Genre: Rock, Hardcore
Grade: B+
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 9:35 pm and is filed under Album Reviews, Arts & Entertainment.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Print this post
Email this post© 2008 The Nevada Sagebrush
