When Avenged Sevenfold dropped Hail to the King in 2013, followers and critics alike have been struck by its stark departure from the band’s earlier works. The album, outlined by its stripped-down, arena-ready sound, was a deliberate try to craft a tough rock basic within the vein of Metallica‘s Black Album. As frontman M. Shadows admitted in a latest interview, the choice stemmed from the conclusion that their music — layered with neoclassical complexity — was too area of interest to attain true mainstream attraction.
“Hail to the King was a response to the truth that we have been a giant band, however none of our songs could possibly be performed anyplace in a bar. We had nothing that lived as much as AC/DC, or Metallica‘s Black Album, or all these albums that we love. All of our stuff’s a little bit too complicated, a little bit too neoclassical,” Shadows advised Bradley Corridor (through Final Guitar)
The band’s answer was to simplify. In keeping with Shadows, they deliberately streamlined the music, drawing closely on their influences. “We began actually chopping shut; carrying our influences very a lot on our sleeves on this form of dumbed-down model of rock music. And that is not a shot at these bands, ‘trigger they do it brilliantly. They do it higher than us. However we wished to attempt our hand at doing one thing like that.”
This method led to inventive decisions that felt unnatural to the band. “It is simplified,” Shadows defined. “However I feel we have been good sufficient to piece collectively… Oh, it is easy drums — it is enormous drums. It is a extra scooped sound on the toms. It is a lower-volume guitar that really feels larger with the bass. It is a quite simple vocal; there’s not a variety of harmonies. It is one vocal that is form of yelling at you, and it is nearly like, can you’re taking this vocal melody and sing it to your child as a lullaby?”
Regardless of these challenges, the band pressed ahead, creating what would change into their greatest tune. “And so, we took all these issues, and we made Hail to the King. And, sadly, ‘Hail to the King’ labored.,” Shadows mentioned. “It is our greatest tune. I would not have it every other approach, nevertheless it’s humorous that that is the tune that has nearly a billion views and a tune that individuals hear first. I do not know if that is extra of a commentary on us or the everyday rock listener. However, yeah, ‘Hail to the King’ is a type of issues the place it is only a humorous little experiment.”
The album’s affect cannot be overstated, whilst Shadows and the band later pivoted towards a extra experimental and genre-defying sound with 2023’s Life is However a Dream…. The evolution between the 2 information displays the strain between inventive freedom and industrial success—a balancing act Avenged Sevenfold has navigated for many years.
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