Are we supposed to be taking A7X seriously? They’ve gone from being a band revered by many for their vicious live shows and all round showmanship to a band ruined by their vocalist’s inability to scream, instead prancing around with an image that’s supposed to make them look rock and roll in the same way Axl and Slash drank their way to success in Guns n Roses. The thing is, for all their overblown guitarwork and piano-rock ballads, Avenged Sevenfold aren’t fit to lace GnR’s boots – and this brand new album is arguably their worst record yet. It’s stripped of any emotion, full of songs you’d expect to hear on corporate rock radio and so over-produced it’s a slippery, polished beast that doesn’t really stick in your head.
In places this self-titled record is painful. ‘Gunslinger’ is dreadful and the spoken word rant on the opening tracks is really odd and misplaced. Most of the 10 tracks resort to the same heavy guitar/chorus/solo style which becomes repetitive, especially when none of the songs really stand out all that much. Even the single, currently doing the rounds on a TV channel near you, has very little staying power. A7X circa 2007 are a very different beast from the band that wrote and recorded ‘Waking The Fallen’. They’re almost becoming a cartoon parody of a heavy rock band, the walking, talking, tattooed cliche of a band with a Jack Daniels bottle in their hand and a cig in their mouth.
I’m sure fans will love this, they seem to love everything A7X do, but for me it’s a really poor effort from a once stellar act.