Avenged Sevenfold or A7X have experimented and evolved a lot over the years, and being one of the most commercially successful mainstream bands, that is no easy feat. The band blew me away with their progressive metal approach on “The Stage”, but man did they really surprise me this time.

A7X recently released their eighth studio album “Life is but a Dream…”, and damn if this is not the weirdest, trippy and most experimental album of their entire career. By far, this will be the most polarising album of their career for a long time, until the band outdo themselves again.

Full of abrupt and even somewhat awkward changes in tone, they incorporate a plethora of influences here ranging from heavy, thrash, groove and progressive metal, to jazz, techno, art rock, psychedelia, acoustic etc.

The two singles on this album aka “Nobody” and “We Love You” are pretty much enough to give the basic essence of crazy on this album. The band switch from extremely technical and heavy riffs in the first single to some extremely trippy shit and eventually step into the industrial realm on the second single where they sort of combine heavy metal, hardcore, some of their old metalcore style and techno.

Then in “Cosmic” the band goes on a bit of a spacey metal journey, combining blistering solos and then going orchestral and techno. “Beautiful Morning” just continues the trend of combining weird textures, heavy riffs and some very soft moments.

As I write, I don’t have enough words to fully dissect the level of experimentation done here. “Life is but a Dream…” almost seems like A7X were on drugs themselves which opened up another part of their heads and gave them the craziest ideas, and they embraced the crazy completely.

But this is not just going experimental and weird for the sake of it, the band fully dived into their creative selves and brought out something which may either bore or fascinate listeners. The instrumentation and the vocals are outright brilliant, sound design is a bit awkward, but everything just feels so organic that it sounds weirdly incredible.

 

Score: 10/10