AVENGED SEVENFOLD – Nightmare

I always thought that Avenged Sevenfold was one of those modern metal core bands that American radio loves so much. Bands which of all sounds the same, bands which has one guy who screams his guts out in the verses and has one melodic singer that can sing the cheesy choruses. So I decided there wasn’t any need for me to check them out as metal core really isn’t my case of beer. And from what I have heard about them, I wasn’t that far away with that assumption. But then I heard their first single from the album, the title track and went ”Whooa!!!”. This wasn’t metalcore at all, this is just plain Heavy Metal, not a far cry from what Metallica does. In fact, their sound is sometimes so close to what Metallica does these days, it almost feels like plagiarism. And that is one thing that doesn’t make for a top-notch rating. Also lead singer M. Shadows sometimes sounds way too alike James Hetfield for comfort, it’s not that hard to guess his main influence. That and the fact that the album holds the old filler or two is the only negative things I can say about this album. But that’s trifle, because this album is too good to let go of because of  little things like that.

Already mentioned title track and ”Welcome To The Family” are both very catchy and melodic, yet pretty hard metal and ”Gods Hates Us” is brilliant with a twist of Pantera in it. There are also some ballads on here – ”Victim” is great with a huge hit potential, ”Tonight The World Dies” is heavy and dark, ”Fiction” is both jazzy and progressive, a song about their late drummer The Rev and ”So Far Away” is acoustically driven. Really good songs, all of them – and it is not every day that we get four ballads on a metal album. Avenged Sevenfold might not be the most original band in the world, but who cares? This album contains great songs which sometimes gets into progressive mood and the album is hard enough for metal fans to like and catchy enough for mainstream radio. But the band still have a bit of hassle with the “true” metal audience – at least the old school ones, for being über commercial – and they make no bones about it.  They are already huge in the States: Will the rest of the world wake up and smell the metal with this album?

Jon Wilmenius (7/10)

Tracklist:

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