Review: Avenged Sevenfold – Hail To The King

BY MARTINA SMITH

It’s been difficult to be an Avenged Sevenfold fan these past few years. During the production of this California-based rock band’s 2010 album, Nightmare, their drummer and lifelong friend Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan died. Since then, Avenged Sevenfold fandom has been a whirlwind of break-up rumors, scarce tours and fear of a replacement drummer.  With their new 2013 release Hail To The King, however, Avenged Sevenfold promised a return to their roots that would get the band back on track.

After such a hiatus, did the album deliver? In some ways yes, it certainly does sound like an Avenged Sevenfold album. The melodic sound of lead singer M. Shadows’ voice and the awe-inspiring guitar work of guitarists Synyster Gates and Zacky Vengeance welcome you into the album from the very beginning. However, while the band does “get back on track” in some ways, Hail To The King isn’t the progressive, moving-forward album most fans were hoping for. Instead, it sounds a little like a rehash of songs and themes both from Avenged Sevenfold’s past, as well as the pasts of other bands.

The band’s vocals and instrumentation are stellar, as per usual. Shadows’ voice fluctuates between soothing and harsh depending on the song, and he compliments the band’s heavy instrumentals well. The opening track, “Shepard of Fire,” serves as an effective introduction. The arena-metal style showcases what is to come on most of the songs on the album: a slow build up followed by a period of heavy instrumentation, accompanied by some killer dueling guitar solos by Gates and Vengeance. With some stringed instruments, a horn section, and a few spoken parts, it seems Avenged Sevenfold wanted to experiment a little more instrumentally. Each effort here works in their favor.

The lyrics are just as harsh as the music, in classic Avenged Sevenfold fashion. Lyrics that proclaim that there are “bodies hanging in the streets to adore” and that you better “watch your tongue or have it cut from your head” paint violent images that, while shocking at times, are what fans of the band have come to expect and love. And, with the more tender ballads “Crimson Day” and “Acid Rain”, the band shows they too have a softer side underneath all that hardcore imagery.

While the album is incredibly enjoyable, the part that really takes away from it is the fact I’ve heard a lot of it before. I’ve heard these tracks with slightly different variations on so many metal albums of the last 10 years, including previous Avenged Sevenfold albums. The slow ballads are similar to previous songs, such as “Fiction” and “So Far Away” off of the band’s last album, Nightmare. The arrangements borrow heavily from bands of the past. The title track, “Hail To The King” was criticized for using a suspiciously similar riff to the one heard on classic rock band AC/DC’s song, “Thunderstruck.” Nothing new is really brought to the table.

Overall, Hail to The King is a decent post-hiatus effort. Despite being your average Avenged Sevenfold album, it still is an Avenged Sevenfold album, and it operates on a higher standard of quality than others in its genre. If you’re a fan of the band or metal music with heavy mainstream rock influences, definitely give Hail To The King a try.