Review Summary: Avenged Sevenfold at their most inconsistent
Imagine this: it’s 2010, and you’re eleven years old; Video On Demand was still a fairly popular source of discovering new entertainment. You had seen the name ‘Avenged Sevenfold’ a few times in the past, and you had friends and family who knew them. Your mind was open enough to give the band a chance despite them not being of the same cloth that defined the other artists in your musical repertoire, and so you decided to search up the song “Nightmare” on your cable network’s Video On Demand. Since your interest was piqued enough from that one song, you then decide to scour back a few years to see what else they had accomplished. In comes “Beast and the Harlot”, with its booming introduction led by none other than late drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. What you weren’t expecting, however, was singer M. Shadows’ relative lack of power to his tone when compared to the aforementioned “Nightmare”. The nasally, almost whiny tone turns you away immediately, and so you then proceed to purposefully avoid the album in which the song presided for as long as you can, as you were too repulsed by the vocals to even feign any interest.
That was my first experience with
City of Evil.
While things have certainly changed since, what hasn’t changed is my dissatisfaction with much of this record when compared to, really, everything else in their catalogue; yes, even some moments in
Hail to the King have stuck more than the lead singles on this album. There was a portion of time in which tracks like “Bat Country”, “Seize the Day”, and “Beast and the Harlot” weren’t as insufferable as they are to me now, but it definitely didn’t last very long; they had acceptable enough instrumentals, but I was no longer able to overlook the singing like I could on tracks like “Sidewinder”, “Strength of the World”, or “M.I.A.”, as the tracks still felt obnoxiously vocal-centric. This album contains what is easily Shadows’ worst vocal performance, and a major step down from that of
Waking the Fallen’s vocals; he had turned to vocal coach Ron Anderson (who had previously worked with Axl Rose and Chris Cornell) for help, but in hindsight, the album likely would have fared better without his input. In his quest to achieve a unique sound to his vocals, he succeeded for all the wrong reasons; unique, yet grating at the same time.
To be fair, the album isn’t a complete drag, as the five-song stretch past “Seize the Day” still contains some of the band’s most proficient material. “The Wicked End” has some of guitarists Synyster Gates’ and Zacky Vengeance’s more virtuosic riffage and soloing on display, besting even some of their predecessor’s mastery with its greater melodic focus. “Strength of the World”, at an overwhelming nine minutes, was the band’s first noticeable flirtation with progressive metal, although not nearly as pronounced as on future works, notably
The Stage. Closer “M.I.A.” is a satisfactory end to an album that started on very shaky footing. The first half isn’t entirely a throwaway either, as “Trashed and Scattered” carries a much higher level of energy than the rest of the songs before “Sidewinder”; even Shadows sounds like he’s in his element on that track, but that could just be the frenetic pace masking his flaws. Unfortunately, tracks like “Seize the Day” which would have benefited from a better vocal performance are ultimately held back by the nasal crooning that permeates the album. It isn’t often that a poor vocal performance can almost completely ruin an album, yet somehow M. Shadows managed to succeed.
Avenged Sevenfold has plenty of albums in their repertoire worth returning to, even after the hardcore-influenced duo that is
Sounding the Seventh Trumpet and
Waking the Fallen. While those who have more nostalgia with
City of Evil will certainly continue to view it in a positive light, there are plenty of abundantly obvious flaws. Questionable performances from M. Shadows combined with musicianship that ranges from bland to virtuosic depending on the song makes for an inconsistent and rather difficult to enjoy release overall. Their eponymous follow-up largely rectified this issue, as did
Nightmare, which ultimately proves that Shadows needed more than a few months to develop the technique that vocal coach Anderson taught him. While not completely irredeemable,
City of Evil is largely too uninteresting musically to overlook the poor performances within, especially compounded with the fact that not a single song is below 5 minutes; it makes Bullet for My Valentine’s
Scream Aim Fire feel like a quick listen in comparison.
