Avenged Sevenfold formed in 1999 and are an American heavy metal band from California. Now how have I managed to go all this time and never heard a single song by them? Probably because they are not too radio friendly and up until this year I haven't really been into heavier music. The first time I came across them was this year when M.Shadows and Synestor Gates played a few songs with Linkin Park at Chester Benningtons Memorial concert. Shadow's vocals on "Burn it down" were truly phenomenal and I had to check them out. At first I just listened to any of their biggest tracks on You Tube without listening to a full album. But it wasn't long before I bought the back catalog and I am gradually getting into the albums. I think I have enough knowledge about them now to write a review on their latest album "The Stage" and put it into context of their other albums.
As previously mentioned "The Stage" is AX7's seventh album. They are a band which have truly evolved over time and are not afraid to put out music that they want rather than what maybe appeals to the wider public. By doing this it does seem like they have attracted a lot of hardcore fans. This is the longest album AX7 have done coming in at 73 minutes. Although Avenged are no strangers to long albums with "Nightmare" coming in at 66 minutes and "City of Evil" coming in at 72 minutes. But in terms of the listener I think this is their most challenging album. It is very diverse in terms of the types of songs and I wouldn't really say there are any hit singles on here like "So Far Away" and "Afterlife". Title track "The Stage" was given the music video treatment and that song is 8 minutes, 32 seconds. So great song but radio stations are not exactly going to play it! In saying that it is a great song which is backed up by the Grammy committee who decided this song is in contention for a Grammy in the best rock song category.
"The Stage" is a concept album about artificial intelligence. Now I would go into the lyrics but to be honest with this kind of album, it is not really about the lyrics for me. It is about the music and how the vocals fit to the music. What is actually said is irrelevant to me. It is more important to me that the M.Shadows vocals fit to the music. And they certainly do. As previously said this is a challenging album and I found that it took many listens to really get into it. At the same time I wouldn't say those early listens were bad. I would be listening to it going - "Yeah this is a good bit", "Yeah I like this" etc. But the songs would blend into each other and I wouldn't really be dividing up the tracks and truly appreciating it due to its length and complexity.
One of the things that helped was listening to an acoustic album AX7 released recently of their live performance at the Grammy museum accompanied by a string section. In particular they played "Roman Sky" and part of "Exist". In "Roman Sky" you can see the complexity of the song. The guitar work is simply amazing. M.Shadows vocals are absolutely awesome and delivered with such passion. This is a track which maybe you wouldn't associate with AX7 before as it is a softer more mellow track for them. When I went back to the album and listened to this track again I instantly liked it more. "Exist" is the album closer and having listened to many of their albums now it does appear to be their most progressive and adventurous song to date. As they said before playing part of it at the acoustic gig. The first 7 minutes is like the build up, then you have the main part. Then you have the five minute outro which has a voice over from astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson which is such an effective end to the album.
The album does benefit from the string section featuring throughout especially on songs like my personal favourtie "Angels" which also has a killer guitar solo on it. But although the songs haven't got screaming vocals on them like in their earlier days of "Sounding the Seventh Trumpet" and "Waking the Fallen"; They are still firmly in the hard rock/metal genre. Some have said that they are going into the progressive metal genre but it could be argued they have been their quite a while looking at the length of previous albums. But in terms of their sound they are definitely in the progressive rock/metal category now.
I wouldn't normally review deluxe editions of albums but at time of writing AX7 re-released this album with extra tracks. I'm not normally a fan of deluxe albums as usually bands (and I believe AX7 have done this before) just add on a few b-sides that didn't quite make the album and the consumer is sucked into buying it again. But I think in this case it is worth a go, especially if you use streaming services anyway. 6 of the new tracks are covers of huge bands like Pink Floyd, Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones. To be honest I think the "Wish you were here" cover is awesome but the rest of the songs I don't recognise which is probably more down to my lack of knowledge of pre 90's music. Either that or the other songs are not as well known songs by the big bands. I still think its genius though as they know they have released a not as commercial album and are now giving fans some accessible songs to go with it. The 4 other songs are live songs from the Stage tour in London. Another good move as it shows how good they are live!! They are on my list now anyway.
Overall this is a classic album which needs a lot of patience to get into. But it just keeps getting better with every listen. I don't think I'm fully there yet but I am in a good place with it. I do think the deluxe edition is worth it and I look forward to what AX7 do next, although with 2018 involving more touring it will be a bit of a wait yet for the next album.
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