Album Review: Avenged Sevenfold ‘The Stage’

It’s been a long time coming, but Californian Rockers Avenged Sevenfold have finally released their highly anticipated seventh studio album with a BANG! Literally dropping the album on the world this morning after weeks of sneaky guerrilla marketing on an international scale, anticipation was high to see whether ‘The Stage’ would stand up to the hype.

Kicking off with the eight-minute shred-fest of a title track, The Stage features pretty much every note available to lead guitarist Synyster Gates. The opening track features some nice balance between heavier and softer moments with some chorus-filled cleans in a nice, soulful stripped-back instrumental breakdown and of course a killer solo!

Paradigm is a solid, aggressive head-nod to the older A7X we all came to love when we were (cough) 13. It also features some thrashier drums in comparison to their ‘Hail To The King’ album from Brooks Wackerman, who is now the third drummer for the band following the tragic passing of Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan. Paradigm does have a slightly whiney chorus from frontman M Shadows, but it does however also show some of those killer growls which we haven’t seen since God Hates Us from ‘Nightmare’ in 2010.

“With an absolutely absorbing guitar driven intro, orchestral swells, and Shadows’ powerful vocals, Roman Sky is all the right sorts of dramatic.”

God Damn! That’s literally how we felt when this song exploded in our ears with immense energy and all the double-kicks you could ever want. ‘The Stage’ is somewhat of a concept album focussing on artificial intelligence. This really stands out in God Damn with a very surreal, alien-esque guitar solo. The song then takes a strange turn into some sort of flamenco breakdown which seems a bit odd and takes detracts from the song’s punchiness overall which is a real pity.

One thing I will say for this album is that it exemplifies A7X’s simplification of their riffs as the years have progressed. While the solos have gotten ever crazier, the general song riffs seem to be a little simple in comparison to songs like Unholy Confessions and Trashed And Scattered from their older albums.

Creating God is a good example of this simplification. While it’s still catchy, there really isn’t much to it. Perhaps it’s the band embracing the “less is more” approach which is totally fine but it runs the risk of leaving some songs a little boring at times.

Usually you can call an Avenged Sevenfold song just by listening to the intro. Their unique style and tone has commanded the rock and metal charts for years, however I was pleasantly surprised when I first heard the 5-piece spicing things up a bit in Angels and Simulation. With a very sinister sounding intro, comprised of a slightly distorted guitar and some strange high-pitched tones, Angels is this album’s version of Seize The Day. With two killer solos and some nice harmonies, this track serves as a nice break and refresher on the album.

Simulation has a mellow, Pink Floyd-ish intro with very spacey sounds and undertones before hitting you with another curveball and completely ripping your spine out through your throat. Exploding into a rapid, thrashy beat with vicious vocals and some sort of catastrophic story occurring in the background, this sonic journey is rather impressive! Yet another killer solo from Gates takes us back to a sort of weird serenity.

Roman Sky is incredible, simple as that! With an absolutely absorbing guitar driven intro, orchestral swells, and Shadows’ powerful vocals, Roman Sky is all the right sorts of dramatic. I mean who doesn’t love a guitar solo, backed up with a chorus and orchestra?! Roman Sky is one of the album’s clear highlights and rounds off the more mellow section of ‘The Stage’.

“When you project your band logo onto the sides of major buildings all over the world you really are sending a statement, and Avenged Sevenfold have proven they have the chops to pull it off.”

Wrapping everything up is the whopper, 15-minute journey that is Exist. Warping through trippy, other-worldly synth lines into a huge, distorted thrash section before somehow making its way into the vocals with some clean guitars behind. This song has it all! While the chorus is a tad dull I think it still suits the space in the song.

Award-winning astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gives a spoken word performance over a pretty high-energy rocking instrumental. Tyson wrote this universe-orientated segment specifically for this album which is pretty epic! It serves as a huge send off to ‘The Stage’, tying up its themes and will catch most A7X fans off-guard as they’ve never done anything like this before.

Overall, ‘The Stage’ has definitely delivered what was promised and much more. When you project your band logo onto the sides of major buildings all over the world you really are sending a statement, and Avenged Sevenfold have proven they have the chops to pull it off. Touching on some sounds from their eclectic back catalogue and adding a diverse range of new tactics to their arsenal, Avenged Sevenfold’s seventh album is definitely worth the wait!

Check out the music video for the album’s title track The Stage below!