The Avenged Sevenfold Thread (merged)

[Heretic]

Yeah, a lot of current fans probably haven't listened to STST. I don't listen to much from it often either, but I gladly acknowledge it and it's still a pretty good listen. The maturity from it to Waking the Fallen is unbelievable, though.

[PuffyPat]

Definitely. Waking the Falling has to be my favorite album of theirs. They really stepped up their game. To be honest, it was because they got Mr. Gates. Before him there was no lead guitar so Zacky had to do everything, but when Syn came along there was less pressure on Zacky, and they were really able to grow.

[RuRoRul]

Sad to say I'm one of those "Don't listen to STST" fans  I've listened to it somewhat but I don't actually have it - I like the situation of "I really like every A7X song I have" instead of "I like most and appreciate the others as part of their immature debut".

Dancing Dead is one of my favourite A7X songs. Honestly though City Of Evil is just awesome. At least half of my top 20 A7X songs would come from City Of Evil, I think, it's just their best work. M.I.A is my favourite song by them. I Won't See You Tonight Pt.1 and Save Me are some of the next ones, along with other awesome COE songs like Sidewinder, Strength Of The World etc. Does anyone else really like And All Things Must End? Probably my second favourite from Waking The Fallen.

[Heretic]

And All Things Will End is absolutely awesome, but the ending is kind of like "what just happened," haha.

Waking the Fallen has a lot of awesome songs, though, I'd probably say I Won't See You Tonight pt. 1, Remenissions, And All Things Will End, Chapter Four, and Second Heartbeat are my favorites.

[PuffyPat]

And All Things Will End is a KILLER track. The riffage is sick. I used to rock out to that shit all the time. In fact, I'm listeing to it right now. Man do I miss old A7X.

[Arch Benemy]

Man do I miss old A7X.

Me too man. Waking the Fallen is such a masterpiece.

[ZKX-2099]

And All Things Will End is still their best album closer... well... shit I don't know if I can say that since Nightmare... tie for now.

[Heretic]

In terms of album closers:

Save Me > M.I.A. > And All Things Will End > Dear God > Shattered By Broken Dreams (With Save Me and M.I.A. basically being tied)

And I don't particularly miss old A7X at all. They've matured a good bit and Nightmare was a fantastic offering. If they take things in the Not Ready to Die direction, we'll most likely get a masterpiece.

[AcidLameLTE]

Man do I miss old A7X.

Me too man. Waking the Fallen is such a masterpiece.

Agreed.

[ZKX-2099]

In terms of album closers:

Dear God > Shattered By Broken Dreams

wat

[Heretic]

In terms of album closers:

Dear God > Shattered By Broken Dreams

wat

It's a good song, but the production is kind of "ehh" and I think there's better songs on STST in any case.

[ZKX-2099]

Yes, but as an album closer it beats the shit out of Dear God.

[Heretic]

Maybe. The first time I listened to the S/T, though, I was surprised that that was the kind of song they chose to close the album, and I really have a soft spot for the song.

[ZKX-2099]

I'm kinda indifferent to the S/T overall. Lot of great stuff on it. But then I listened to Diamonds In The Rough there were a few songs that were better than everything on the S/T.

TL;DR: It's not that S/T has bad songs, it's that it doesn't have (more) great songs.

[RuRoRul]

As far as the closing songs go, M.I.A is my favourite A7X song, Save Me is one of my top songs, I just talked about how I love And All Things Must End (although I'd rank it a little lower than Save Me)... the other two would be way down there though. I have problems with the sound of STST anyway but Shattered By Broken Dreams is a pretty cool song as far as that album goes. Dear God is one of my least favourites from the self titled. It's got some really cool sounding bits and I do really like the solo but I'm just not a big fan of the overall feel of the song compared to the rest of their stuff though. Still, I much prefer it to Shattered By Broken Dreams just because the good bits do actually sound really good.

I don't think there's anything on Diamonds that's better than everything on the self titled; Dancing Dead is my favourite from Diamonds and I'd say at least Afterlife is better than it. But I do agree with the general point though, the self titled could really have used some of the stuff from Diamonds. Replace A Little Piece Of Heaven (not a fan of that song) with Dancing Dead and add a few more of the good Diamonds songs (none of the Diamonds songs are really bad, so take your pick) it would have been much better.

[ZKX-2099]

I don't think there's anything on Diamonds that's better than everything on the self titled

Listen to Demons again. It's an injustice to The Rev that one of the song that most displays he skills didn't make the cut.

What pisses me off is that the S/T is 52 minutes long. They could have put a few more songs on it.

[RuRoRul]

I've listened to Demons a lot, like I said Dancing Dead is the best thing on Diamonds, and Afterlife > Dancing Dead so...

And yeah, that makes it even more stupid that some of the songs from Diamonds weren't on it, assuming they were finished and ready to go. They could easily have put at least two on without any fuss about the album being long, and even more if they replaced the two longest and weakest songs on the album with them...

[ZKX-2099]

Demons>Dancing Dead>The Fight>Crossroads>Tension>Until The End>Girl I Know

For posterity.

[Heretic]

Dancing Dead > Demons > Tension > Until the End > The Fight > Crossroads > Girl I Know

[ZKX-2099]

My ideal S/T track listing with all 17 songs... yes I am aware that would be an obscenely long CD.

1. Critical Acclaim
2. Almost Easy
3. Girl I Know
4. Scream
5. Afterlife (Ideally it would be a mix of the album version and alt with the added string sections)
6. Crossroads
7. Gunslinger
8. Demons
9. Tension
10. The Fight
11. Unbound
12. Brompton Cocktail
13. Until The End
14. Lost
15. Dear God
16. Dancing Dead
17. Little Piece Of Heaven

[PuffyPat]

Man do I miss old A7X.

Me too man. Waking the Fallen is such a masterpiece.

It's a top 20 album for me, at least.

Also I liked the title track on Nightmare, but I just couldn't get into the album. I might try again some other time, but without The Rev, it just doesn't feel right. Even if it was MP on the drums it's just not the same.

[Heretic]

I'm pretty sure WTF, CoE, and Nightmare would make it into my top 20, but I'm biased.

And, the Rev not being on the album doesn't change the fact that all of Nightmare is fantastic. It's such a step up from the S/T and there's not really a bad song imo. Some less good ones than others, but overall it's a great album, you really should give it more listens if you're a fan, because I'm really surprised you can't "get into it" especially when it's one of their best.

[Dark Castle]

Halfway into Nightmare I started to lose interest, still a good album though.

[AcidLameLTE]

1. Critical Acclaim

WTF

[Heretic]

Halfway into Nightmare I started to lose interest, still a good album though.

You've finally come around, Dylan!

I will agree that A7X didn't do themselves any favors by putting 3 ballad-esque songs in a row, especially after the monster song that precedes them. They should have definitely put a heavier, upbeat song in between those three to add a bit more diversity.

But those 3 songs lead into Save Me, which is one of their best songs ever, so I'm not too perturbed. That, and Tonight the World Dies is amazing.

[Dark Castle]

Halfway into Nightmare I started to lose interest, still a good album though.

You've finally come around, Dylan!

Oh I've always been a fan, just not near as much as other bands 

[ZKX-2099]

1. Critical Acclaim

WTF

Re-read the post.

A7X didn't do themselves any favors by putting 3 ballad-esque songs in a row, especially after the monster song that precedes them. They should have definitely put a heavier, upbeat song in between those three to add a bit more diversity.

Yeah. They should have put 4:00 AM on it. Between Victim and Tonight the World Dies.

[AcidLameLTE]

OH. PHEW!

I almost had a heart attack when I first read that

[Heretic]

Two videos posted of A7X performing Chapter Four and Second Heartbeat.

Both of these songs haven't been played recently so it's awesome hearing them, and the new stage production owns. Also, some recent news involving the drummer situation and eventual writing of the next album:

Also on Avenged Sevenfold’s future agenda is the status of the drum chair, vacated after the December 2009 death of James “The Rev” Sullivan and temporarily filled by ex-Dream Theater member Mike Portnoy before Ilejay took over at the beginning of the year. “(Ilejay) is great,” Shadows says. “He’s 23 now, and the first show he played was in front of 16,000 people, and from there we went to Rock Am Ring, 80 or 90,000 people in Germany. As far as personality and his playing, he’s our guy, but we haven’t been able to write a record with him yet. So we want to make sure for his good and for our good that he can write with us and bring something to the creative and be comfortable in the situation. We’re just trying to work towards that, and hopefully everything works out ’cause we love the guy.”

And elsewhere it was said that they'll probably take a few months off after the tour to have to themselves before even thinking about writing a new album. If it's anything like Not Ready to Die it'll be great, though.

[Perpetual Change]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f66bRuOVNeg&feature=related

What a deeply moving video. They're making this a staple on the tour, apparently. Every night they wheel out a piano for Jimmy to sit at and play this song. Really cool, special thing to do for the Rev. You gotta wonder, with the music and the lights and the smoke, it almost must feel like he really is there performing with them.

[dethklok09]

Yeah I've watched a few videos like that, extremely chilling and moving.

[PuffyPat]

FUCK. This makes me so sad. I miss Jimmy so much. I really wish I had gone to see them when I had the chance.

[dethklok09]

Yeah same, he was a huge influence on me.

[PuffyPat]

Definitely my favorite drummer by far. His style was his own, and he had a great personality as well. He was funny as hell, as a few trips to YouTube can confirm, although it's hard to watch those videos now.

[dethklok09]

Definitely my favorite drummer by far. His style was his own, and he had a great personality as well. He was funny as hell, as a few trips to YouTube can confirm, although it's hard to watch those videos now.

Yeah, have you watched the all excess documentary? I really recommend it, as the guy is just fucking hilarious