Review: Avenged Sevenfold's Nightmare

Nightmare, the fifth album by Californian metalheads Avenged Sevenfold is very easily one of the most anticipated and talked about releases in the heavy metal community, and the music world at large. The group was propelled into a brief pseudo legendary status after the death of their drummer and primary songwriter, James “The Rev” Sullivan. Much speculation was given as to whether or not the band would continue with the album, or if all efforts would be put on hiatus. To their credit, however, the band pushed forth and entered the studio with Mike Portnoy, a meteoric talent himself and, until very recently, the drummer of prog rock masters Dream Theater. Should this album fail, then, it will not be for lack of musical talent.

The album’s title and lead track, Nightmare will sound immediately cliché to any connoisseur of the heavy metal arts, from its music box lullaby opening that is swiftly crushed by blast beats and soaring, sinister guitar riffs. Did Metallica kinda do something like this? Yeah. Didn’t Iron Maiden do something like this? Yeah. Didn’t Ozzy kinda make a band about this? Yeah. But it’s okay, because the super-heavy, almost western, cowboy metal that this group offers brings a new flavor to the bland and overused concept of setting bad dreams to creepy music. Didn’t Tim Burton do a movie about this? Sorry, I’ll stop.

After Nightmare, we are subjected to seven songs in a row that contain some of the heaviest and most unrelentingly furious work that has ever been produced by Avenged. Fingertapping and sweep picking through avant-guarde modal scales and doubly diminished chords do a fine job of keeping the songs aurally dark and closed off, but in most instances, the choruses are melodic and anthemic, finely sung poems of war-torn woe, or of woeful soldiers on far-off battlefields. This odd mix of dark, atonal guitar wankery and soulful choruses just barely works, as for the entire album we see the band battling its own indecisiveness as to whether they’re going to go off the deep end and be the loudest and most assaulting musicians possible, or if they’re going to retain their marketability after the formidable commercial success of their previous albums.

The first two thirds of the album are punctuated by the super duper heavy God Hates Us, and once beyond that, we arrive at the two songs that best represent the battle of the genres in this album; the uptempo ballad Victim, and the ephemeral and haunting Fiction.

While the guitar work in Victim is much slower than many of the other songs in the album, one might think that makes the song not as good because of course, faster equals better. But the fact remains that slower music is much easier to hear, and when our axe man Synyster Gates is flying off the handle with his 32^nd note apreggios, there is a great deal that is lost in the distortion and the overall mix of the sound. Victim solves these problems with two finely crafted, acrobatic solos that are truly lighter than air and compliment the smooth vocal presence. It all stays in the same key, and there are none of the major, sudden dynamic changes that jar the earlier tracks. If there is a conventional, proper rock song to be found on the album, here it is.

In the opposite direction, the band’s desire for dissonance and the ethereal realm of the whole tone scale we find the ghastly Fiction. This is also noteworthy for being the final piece of music competed for the album by Owens, reportedly finished only three days before his death and ending with the lyrics “I hope it’s worth it / What’s left behind me / I know you’ll find your way when I’m not with you tonight”. Owens provides us with a floating, echoing piano vamp that feels like Bohemian Rhapsody’s melody being chased by Jason Voorhees, without any accompaniment for nearly the entire piece. If you only listen to two songs on this album, make it Fiction and Victim, and then it’s up to you if you want to hear how these two styles mesh across the rest of the work.

All told, Nightmare is a success. There is a lot of confusion within the album as I’ve already said, but at the end of the day, it breaks down to a brief section of rabidly energetic sonic devastation followed by a beautiful chorus that begs to be sung along to. And when you’re in the audience, these are the two things you want the most in the act. So while this isn’t the best thing to listen to on your iPod, it’s quite a different matter when it’s performed live.