In words, this innovated the genre of metalcore. Metalcore; all core, was made up by the much-disliked screaming. I, unlike some metal-enthusiasts, enjoy and occasional scream, as featured in this album, despite the beneficial accident (I use beneficial because it made this album possible) which destroyed lead singer M. Shadows ability to scream. A blood vessel burst in his throat, ending the screaming featured in Waking the Fallen and Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, the other two A7X albums. If you have an open mind and enjoyed old A7X, you should love this album. I know I enjoyed it a lot. Now, M. Shadows sounds a lot less nu-metal, and creates a generous throwback to old 80's metal. Avenged Sevenfold looks much older now; just look at the music videos on their website. You can really tell A7X has matured as a band.
M. Shadows - Lead Vox
Synyster Gates - Lead Guitar
Vengeance - Rhythem Guitar
Johnny Christ - Bass
The Reverand - Drums
TRACK BY TRACK
Beast and the Harlot - A very nice metal sound, with a sweet chorus with an interestingly-placed F-Chord. This is the first song A7X let us sample with enjoyment. 9/10
Burn It Down - Call me biased, but I love this song. Watch the music video, please, please, on the A7X website. You will fall in love with the crazy thick metal sound. I love the cool head-banger part where he plays a rhythmic chords again and again. 9/10
Blinded in Chains - A little messy, I wouldn't have placed this song higher in the lineup before Bat Country. Certainly not the best song on the album. I didn't like it at all. 7/10
Bat Country - certainly makes me want to "make a beast of myself". A very fun enjoyable song with a cool 12-6-0 riff in the verse and beginning. This was my second favorite track of the album. 10/10
Trashed and Scattered - I didn't enjoy this as much as some of my friends did. It had some killer riffs, and was even enjoyable to listen to for a while, but lost flavor as it went along. 7/10
Seize the Day - Oh gosh, this is an awesome power symphony. I loved this song, and it gave good credit to A7X's GnR roots here. 9/10
Sidewinder - Sidewinder had an awesome riff to it. It had an incredible speedy metal riff. But I couldn't stand the vocals. It had cool lyrics about snakes killing people, of course that's awesome, but comon, the whining makes me want to kill people.8/10
The Wicked End - My favorite track on the album. My favorite track on any A7X album. Ever. This song has an awesome breakdown, cool vocals, and a very creepily cool classical-music part with a cello and violin or something. It destroyed all other songs on this album besides Bat Country. Most will disagree; ignore them. 10/10
Strength of the World - Great acoustic intro, cool riffs too. I like the solid beginning which made me expect too much of the rest. I didn't like the chorus of "strength of the world!". It goes from multi-person shouting to whiney M. Shadows going "ish on my shouldersshh", which gets annoying. Stupid shadows. I did enjoy the "It's over; she's finished" part, which made up for Shadow's annoying voice in the chorus. 8/10
Betrayed - Incredible intro, which I am planning to released tabbed very soon. However, the song itself (verse, etc.) was starting to slow down towards the end of the album. But it was still and O.K. song, and had a beautiful Anthrax-shoutout intro. 8/10
MIA - A beautiful song about war. I felt actually sad towards the end, not just because I was finishing the masterpiece album too. Great solo. 8.5/10
Well, that's the entire album. I hope you guys enjoyed my review. Thanks.
