...Well, it has no video game connections, so that reference was completely pointless.
Anyway, most people will have at least heard about Avenged Sevenfold in passing, as they're one of the biggest bands that can be really connected to metal out there at the minute and, indeed, are considered to be one of the biggest names of the NWOAHM movement (New Wave Of American Heavy Metal), which is mostly made up of various bands playing various styles of metalcore, groove metal, death metal and, occasionally, alternative metal (case of point, some of the other names of the scene that I recognise are As I Lay Dying, Between The Buried And Me, The Black Dahlia Murder, Black Label Society, Disturbed, DevilDriver, The Dilinger Escape Plan, Five Finger Death Punch, Hatebreed, Killswitch Engage, Lamb Of God, Machine Head, Masodon, Sevendust, Slipknot and Trivium...and that's not a complete list of bands considered part of the scene, that's just the names I really recognise from a glance on the Wikipedia page of the scene!). Most of you will probably have spotted quite a few common features among the bands I've just named: aggressive vocals (if not using the more traditional death metal growl or the metalcore scream), very heavy music that still has some degree of melody to it, very popular among the mainstream (although that's more because I don't like the movement much: I'll stick with power metal, traditional heavy metal and glam metal when I want to hear a lot of awesome metal music, thanks!) and generally DESPISED by a lot of metal elitists (likely in relation to my previous point).
Well...as odd a statement is this is going to sound to most people, I think Avenged Sevenfold are somewhat one of the anomalies of the scene. Now, before everyone starts to grab their pitchforks and/or readies their insults for my supposed lack of intelligence, let me stress: I am judging this album AND ONLY THIS ALBUM. Yes, their previous stuff definitely was more in line with the NWOAHM movement, but their albums after City Of Evil slowly moved away from the metalcore influence that made up much of their early sound (and, even on that album, the metalcore influence was somewhat reduced). This album has next to no metalcore influence. Yes, seriously: no metalcore influence to be found here!
And, normally, I'd be triumphing the band for making a bold move away from the sound that made them famous...but there's a noticeable bit of unoriginality on this album, at least some of which gets a tiny bit TOO close to plagiarism, to the point where I'd consider calling in the lawyers about a lawsuit a fairly justified move on the part of the other band in question. However (and I'm aware of the slight hypocrisy of me saying this after rating down bands in the past for not offering anything new), unoriginality in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing: so many bands out there just go out there and play what they like that condemning a different band for doing the same thing is rather unfair. The problem is when the quality goes down and the unoriginality becomes an issue that you cannot ignore. Has that happened here? Well...yes and no. While I wouldn't call it a brilliant album (and I still think that Metallica should consider a copyright lawsuit for "This Means War"), there's some good stuff on Hail To The King, if you look at it as an album in and of itself.
First of all, let's start with the cover art. It's...unoriginal.
Yeah...some of you might be wondering why I'm throwing accusations of this being unoriginal. Well, here's the cover art for the band's second album, Waking The Fallen:
Yeah...and this isn't the second time they've used that kind of theme for their cover art, either! Here's the cover art to their fourth album:
Maybe they have a rule about using bats for their even numbered albums?
...OK, to be fair to the band, they DID have a different cover art intended for their sixth album cover, but they changed it due to fan backlash against it. Here's the original cover:
Looking at this with my (admittedly, very limited) knowledge of art, I think that this COULD have become an awesome album cover. If they'd gone for a darker selection of colours and had all of the people being attacked by the king (I can't help asking if he's meant to be king nothing? Sorry, terrible Metallica joke...) drenched in a pool of blood (with the king himself dripping with it), it might have looked a lot better, although maybe that's getting into slightly too dark territory for them to get away with it. Ah well, there's always the cover art for the vinyl edition of the album, which is a noticeable improvement!
HELL, YEAH!
...Sorry, ex-Warhammer 40,000 fan here. It's just that that's pretty much what I'd pictured Khorne on his throne to look like, only with more blood in the background and him being more like a giant Bloodthirster than the sinister skeleton here! BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
...Anyway, I've taked about the band's cover arts enough. Let's look at the actual album itself.
Pre-release interviews for this album indicated a more conscious decision to return to the core of heavy metal, with a few mentions of groove metal. Well...I don't exactly agree that this is a complete return to the core of heavy metal, but the band certainly have taken a very noticeable step away from metalcore and gone for a sound that shows a lot of appreciation for early hard rock and traditional heavy metal, with a bit of groove thrown in (although, considering 70's hard rock and early heavy metal had a lot of blues influence, I think that it might be worth pointing out that it's not groove metal a la Five Finger Death Punch that I'm being reminded of, but more like a general groove to the music that reminds me a bit of 70's hard rock and early heavy metal...). While this, unsurprisingly, means that the material doesn't feel especially original, I think that they deserve a bit of a free pass on this one, considering that they made a conscious decision to do this and were open about doing this when they were asked what the album sounded like.
The issue, as I've mentioned before, is that the quality of the material does suffer a bit through making this decision. While there are some strong tracks on here, the issue is that quite a few tracks feel like they need a bit more kick to them to really get beyond being politely skippable. There's also the VERY noticeable issue with "This Means War" taking more than a few hints from "Sad But True": in fact, I think it gets UNCOMFORTABLY close to that song. If it was a song that wasn't well known by Metallica fans, like "Invisible Kid" (and every Metallica fan has just tried to work out what album that song is from...I'd hate to see their reaction when they do find it!), I wouldn't be too concerned by it, but this is one of Metallica's best known songs, for goodness sake! You go to a Metallica gig, you're bound to hear this song, no question about it! However, at the end, it's just one song: there's nine other songs on the standard version of the album with which you should help base your opinion of the album upon. And the good part? There are some really great songs on here, if you give the album a fair listen!
The first two tracks on the album, "Shepard Of Fire" and the title track, are brilliant and among my favourite Avenged Sevenfold tracks. I also quite enjoy "Coming Home", which is a very strong song that I quite enjoy listening to. I also have to say that the choruses to "Heretic" "Crimson Day" and "Doing Time", despite them not being songs that I'm a huge fan of, are really very strong and worth a listen. Also, if the unoriginality of the song is ignored, "This Means War" isn't actually a bad song. I would say that "Acid Rain" has an enjoyable chorus as well, although I find the rest of the song rather dull. Anything I've not mentioned is just kind of there: it doesn't leave me with any impression beyond "meh".
The performances on the record are pretty much what you'd expect if you've heard an Avenged Sevenfold album before now (only without M. Shadows doing any harsh vocals). I have to say that new drummer Arin Ilejay does a brilliant job at replacing The Rev (who died in 2009 and has a song specifically related to him on this album titled "St James", which is sadly relegated to being a bonus track on the deluxe version of the album) and temporary member Mike Portnoy (yes, Dream Theater's drummer, among a lot of other bands: he did the drumming for their previous album, Nightmare, and also did a few tours with them until Arin temporarily joined the band and was later made an official member of the band): it'd be impossible to tell that there's anyone new behind the kit if you didn't know that they had someone new behind the kit, which is a very impressive achievement when you consider that Mike freaking Portnoy was (admittedly, not as an official member) part of the band! M. Shadows is his usual "love it or hate it" self. While I won't say he's somewhat like James LaBrie (he doesn't have the same range or the same level of talent (from a technical perspective) to compare favourably to him), he is in that same class of singers that get a VERY divided opinion, depending on who you ask. Personally, I'd say he's an OK singer: he has a fairly good range and a reasonable amount of power to his voice, but the nasal nature of it can be very grating if you're not used to it. He also doesn't have a brilliant voice from a technical perspective, but hey, the same could be said of most thrash metal vocalists! Lead guitarist Synyster Gates is pretty good, I have to say! I don't think he doesn't anything quite as impressive as he does on some of the band's previous albums, but he certainly keeps himself busy across the album. I don't think Zacky Vengeance and Johnny Christ really do anything especially impressive across the album, but they don't do anything bad either.
And we now come to the production on this album. You know how I normally say stuff like "It's probably a bit too loud" or "It could have done with being quieter"? Well...I'm not going to have to say it this time! Seriously, the mastering on this album is just wonderful: it's still loud enough to stand up to modern albums, but it still has a strong sense of dynamics that so many metal albums seem to lack today! It's a huge breath of fresh air to the ears (I know that makes no sense to read, but you know what I mean!) to actually have an album that doesn't feel like it's trying to deafen you and you actually WANT to turn up because you know you're not risking getting tinnitus or going deaf from the mastering of the album! From a mixing perspective, I still think the bass is a bit on the quiet side, but that's a personal nitpick for me. Other than that..."fucking flawless" are the words that spring to mind to describe the production of this album. Seriously, if anyone reading this ever has to produce any music in the future, take your cues from this album, turn the bass up a bit more than it is on here (although make sure the bassist is actually doing something interesting first: if the bassist isn't doing anything interesting and is just following the root note for the whole album, feel free to keep them quiet if you want to) and I'll be practically worshiping you as a producer!
So, how does this album stand up? Well, it's brilliantly produced, has some really good songs on it that make it worth checking out and has some brilliant performances on the album, but it's let down by being somewhat unoriginal and having a few songs which don't get beyond being skippable (and one that is practically begging for a lawsuit). By all accounts, I feel I should be giving this a 6 out of 10, but I'm feeling generous to this album, due to the fact that I consider the production on this album to be the new standard by which we should be judging metal albums by...stuff it, I'm giving it an extra point!
Final Rating: 7 Out Of 10
Avenged Sevenfold have taken a step towards a new horizon, albeit one which needs a bit more work on finding an original sound and tightening up the songwriting. All aspiring producers would do well to pick this up, though: this is how a modern metal album should sound!
Personal Favourite Songs: "Shepard Of Fire", "Hail To The King", "Coming Home"
(If you're wondering why I didn't bother to talk about Avenged Sevenfold's history...well, they're a big enough band at this point that I think doing so would have been a huge waste of time!)
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