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Avenged Sevenfold - Avenged Sevenfold
| Billboard |
| Four albums into what's been a steadily building career, Avenged Sevenfold steps up to make its Artistic Statement. "Scream" mixes drum machine rhythms with jagged guitar chords to industrial-strength effect, while strings weave in and out of "Afterlife." "Gunslinger" kicks off with acoustic guitar and deftly blends the melodic and metallic, arpeggiating piano and operatic backing vocals mark the goth-flavored "Unbound (The Wild Ride)" and pedal steel brings a cowboy-from-hell vibe to "Dear God," which ends with a guitar duel that's equal parts "Hotel California" and "Freebird." "A Little Piece of Heaven," meanwhile, is a wildly theatrical piece—the band's "Bohemian Rhapsody," if you will—that incorporates Eastern European melodies, keyboards and horns. Such tracks as "Critical Acclaim," "Almost Easy" and "Lost" keep the crank factor high—but as part of a bolder, broader and more engaging soundscape.—Gary Graff...full text |
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| Avclub |
| Avenged Sevenfold's third album, 2005's City Of Evil, brought the band a hit ("Bat Country"), a headlining slot on Ozzfest, the Best New Artist Award at MTV's 2006 Video Music Awards, and a stretch on Total Request Live. With that level of mainstream success, it'd seem safe to assume that the follow-up would completely embrace My Chemical Romance-style pop-metal—but that assumption would be wrong. Avenged Sevenfold is still heavy by most standards, incorporating Black Album-era Metallica (especially on the politically charged opener, "Critical Acclaim") into the band's composite of '80s European power-metal, eyeliner emo, late-'90s alt-rock, and modern thrash. The catchy Stone Temple Pilots vibe of "Scream" is enough to put the band back on the charts, but that could happen with more than half of this album… And it probably will....full text |
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| Allmusic |
| Coming off a Best New Artist Award at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards, the members of Avenged Sevenfold returned to the studio, ambitious to create an exciting follow-up to City of Evil -- perhaps overly so, as their self-titled release focuses entirely too hard on pushing the songs into non-metal territory. Their signature, blistering Yngwie Malmsteen guitar arpeggios and lightning fast double-kick drums are still evident, but the overall heavy metal thunder is diluted by their everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach....full text |
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