WARNER MUSIC GROUP
M. Shadows and co tear up the rulebook – and the perforated blotter paper
WHAT ABSOLUTE FUCKING madness is this? Avenged Sevenfold’s last album, 2016’s surprise-dropped The Stage, was a slab of ambitious, prog-tinged modern metal that put clear water between them and their own past, even as it alienated the more dug-in sections of their fanbase. Many bands would have either thought ‘job done’ and resumed normal service, or bottled it and scurried back to safer musical ground. Not Avenged Sevenfold. Their eighth album goes even further out. It’s a deranged psycho-metal musical with hardcore, hip hop, electronic