Avenged Sevenfold – “Nightmare”

Avenged Sevenfold’s fifth studio album Nightmare was created in the midst of tragedy. On December 28, 2009, drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan was found dead due to a drug overdose. This tragic event changed the direction of A7X’s upcoming album into a collection of songs dedicated to the Rev with lyrics encompassing the pain of losing a band mate and a best friend.

It is undeniable that this is their darkest album to date, with album artwork in honour of Jimmy. His presence is kept alive through his piano playing in “Save Me” and his vocals in “Fiction,” the final song he had written. In an interview with Las Vegas radio station X107.5, M. Shadows says that Jimmy finished writing that song three days before he died, and told the band that it would be the last track he had written because he gave the record his all. With gloomy lyrics like “Gave you all I have to give/Found a place for me to rest my head/While I may be hard to find/Heard there’s peace on the other side” being recited over an eerie organ, it seems as if he knew he was going to die and this was his goodbye.

Synester Gates makes his first lyrical attempt in the epic ballad “So Far Away”, writing about how Jimmy is missed. The title track “Nightmare” is nothing short of kickass, and is the perfect song to blast while speeding down a highway. In “God Hates Us” Shadows returns to the screams and growls that made many fans fall in love with A7X during their first two releases. And of course, the album is filled with the awesome guitar solos (ex: “Save Me,” “Welcome to the Family”) that make Avenged Sevenfold one of the strongest and influential bands in metal today.

Dream Theatre’s Mike Portnoy played drums in substitution for Jimmy, and has toured with the band this Summer on the Uproar Festival. Nightmare is one of the best metal albums released this year and debuted at No.1 on the Billboard 200, selling 163,000 copies in it’s first week. Despite how hard recording the album must’ve been for A7X, the band definitely made a release that Jimmy would be proud of.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. Nightmare
02. Welcome to the Family
03. Danger Line
04. Buried Alive
05. Natural Born Killer
06. So Far Away
07. God Hates Us
08. Victim
09. Tonight the World Dies
10. Fiction
11. Save Me

Run Time: 66:47
Release Date: 27.07.2010