Review Summary: I miss the person I was before I heard this.
Sometimes, artists just misfire. They pour their blood, sweat and tears into a project and the public simply doesn't receive it was warmly as they'd like. But you give 'em props for at least trying. Other times, artists like to deviate from what's expected of them and assuage their various stylistic ambitions, even if just for a short while. I'm reminded of Post Malone, who began his career in hip-hop, trying his hand at a country album, or This Wild Life, the former full-instrumental pop punk tandem that later became an all-acoustic endeavor, recently announcing that they too would break out the Wranglers and the steel guitars. Artists don't need to pigeonhole themselves. They can veer off their previous course and try something new. And although, again, fans and listeners might not leap to embrace them, you can at least respect when someone gives it the old college try.
Avenged Sevenfold deserves neither such consideration.
As mentioned, you can swing the bat sometimes, and that fastball is just a little too hot or that changeup is just a little too tricky. A7X haven't done that. A7X has perched themselves in that zone adjacent to the batter's box where hitters often warm up before an at-bat and intentionally taken turns clobbering each other in the face with their bats. That is the best way I can describe both the execution, and the result, of their surprise EP release
Statica. Hyperbolic imagery, yes, but if you're as high as these guys had to have been when they wrote and recorded this, then allowing your friends to smash you upside the noggin with a Louisville Slugger they stole from Carrie Underwood doesn't seem so implausible. At eighteen minutes in length,
Statica is four tracks of criminally inane electronica-tinged drivel. With auto-tuned vocals less intelligible than T-Pain and psychedelic stylings seemingly ripped off from f*cking Smash Mouth, M. Shadows and company have condemned themselves to scorn and mockery in a wholly unprovoked manner.
It's a damn f*cking shame, because there are even still scant traces of quality that could have potentially been extrapolated from this mess with better, or just different, execution. The drums and guitar hisses towards the end of the EP's title track, though quiet and lacking purpose, could have found a home in an extended instrumental section on any of the band's iconic and acclaimed albums. Even the main hooks that are totally doused in auto-tune could have been decent melodies in another life. They instead aim to annoy and unsettle the listener here as much as humanly possible. There's a time and place for trippiness, but leave that to Primus. A7X doesn't have the chops for something like this. "Rejoice" is similarly frustrating, with its rhythmic drum fills having to share space with M. Shadows' vocals while he, ostensibly, gets corn-holed in the rear. All throughout this EP, there are artlessly lame synth washes and electronic flourishes where hard-hitting instrumentals could have been. This is undoubtedly A7X at their worst.
Maybe they're trolling us. Perhaps the band knows that this garbage has no place bearing the moniker of their decorated discography and are just laughing their asses off while we fester in outrage. If so, more power to 'em, I guess. But I couldn't bring myself to get down in the mud with my audience like that. I'd respect them too much to ever leave any question about my intent.
Statica is quite literally some of the worst music I've
ever heard, haphazardly vomitted up by one of contemporary metal's most reputable acts, seemingly with the intent of deliberately harming their name and reputation for no good reason. An ultimate unforced error, this "EP" is especially f*cking
awful.
