MetalSucks

Here in all its glory, the new 8 minute, 21 second animated video for the Broadway showtunes-esque track “A Little Piece of Heaven” from the recent self-titled album of everyone’s favorite band to argue about, Avenged Sevenfold.

Personally I love the track, but I could do without some of the literal interpretations in the video (i.e. the heater, “you have my heart,” and the orchestral skeleton dudes).

-VN

[Thanks to MetalSucks commenter "Hegster90" for the tip]

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So they’ve announced the tour dates and line-up for next year’s edition of the Taste of Chaos tour, and all we can can say is: holy SHIT. Avenged Sevenfold AND Atreyu AND Bullet for My Valentine? All on one tour? I hope they’re gonna be traveling in bullet proof buses with fuck loads of big SWAT team-type security dudes, because every Slayer and Watain fan from here to Gibraltar is gonna be trying to wipe out their three most loathed bands with one fell swoop. I’m serious: Nergal just called me to say he’s pretty sure this tour will bring about the Armageddon, and he didn’t mean it in a cool, “tr00″ kinda way.

While you ponder whether or not you plan to vote for this tour as “Suckiest” or “Least Sucky” in the 2008 Suckie Awards, check out tour dates after the jump.

Click to read more…

Looks like Avenged Sevenfold have set “A Little Piece of Heaven,” the Sondheim-esque show tune cum mini rock opera, as their next single, and their video is going to be a Burton-esque narrative of the story from the song. Apparently when the video is released on January 7, 2008 only those who purchased the MVI version of the CD will be able to log in and watch it. For those who don’t know, MVIs are the music industry’s pretend solution to waining CD sales. They’re versions of CDs that come packaged with a special DVD, which aside from the usual documentary type stuff give you a username and password to log in to a special website. Anyone, I’m sure the video ll be up on YouTube in no time, but for now here’s a preview of the first minute or so.

-VN

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I hate to say “I told you so,” but I told you so. You guys LOVE arguing about Bullet For My Valentine as much as you do about Avenged Sevenfold, maybe even more so. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Bullet For My Valentine are certainly poised for a big 2008 with their new album Scream, Aim, Fire due January 29 on Trustkill, and we’ve got the second of two tracks to hit the ‘net so you can judge for yourself.

ZME Music has the new Bullet for My Valentine song “Eye of the Storm” — actually the b-side on the “Scream, Aim, Fire” single — posted for your listening pleasure via a fake YouTube video, which we’ve conveniently reposted for you below. The track is available for free, legit download from metal culture co-opting kings Hot Topic; but we’re too lazy to register.

Sounds like more of the same regurgitated thrash filtered through generic metalcore to me.

-VN

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Don’t say you didn’t see it coming; with the band’s surprise breakthrough success of The Poison in 2006, Welsh metallers Bullet For My Valentine are poised for a huge year in 2008 with their new record Scream, Aim, Fire. Much like Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet For My Valentine are one of those bands that really get metal fans riled up; you either love them or you hate them, and whichever you do, you do it vehemently.

Metal purists will claim the band are another in a long line of growled-verse / clean-chorus cookie cutter “chugga chugga” metalcore bands. Fans will point out the band’s songwriting ability and the fact that they have actually been a band for a long time. It’ll surely be one of the most hotly debated topics here on MetalSucks, and certainly one of the most divisive bands to have a record out in ‘08. But whatever you think about BFMV, one thing is certain; with the self-titled first single already making huge waves at radio (according to a press release), Scream, Aim, Fire will sell a ton of records, and the band will continue to do well on the road, worldwide.

-VN

Here’s the new metal-video-by-numbers video (warehouse? check. wall of amp cabinets? check. ok, let’s roll!) for “Scream, Aim, Fire”:

According to PopEater AOL Music Blog, [via Buzzgrinder] M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold gets a bit tired of metal all the time while on tour:

“Being on the bus on Ozzfest, I would listening to was hip-hop and country all day. I listened to tons of Lil Jon, T.I., Chamillionaire — everything. One of my favorite artists right now is R. Kelly. I had a lot of Rick Ross in the CD player, a lot of old-school stuff, a lot of Dre. I was getting really interested in the southern stuff because of how huge the beats were.”

Hmm. Well ok, then.

-VN

After watching Avenged Sevenfold rock the fuck out of 3,000 strong at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom last night, Axl remarked to me “I can’t help but think I would’ve enjoyed that more if we hadn’t seen Van Halen last night,” a sentiment I had been thinking mere seconds earlier. So while the show seemed short at 60 minutes + encore, the production seemed light, and the show seemed somewhat anti-climactic… all things said it was still a fucking great show, we just happened to have been spoiled by one of the all-time greats 24 hours prior. Avenged Sevenfold are certainly among the best players in rock and metal today, and they proved it last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City. Click to read more…

Once again the people have spoken. You guys hate Avenged Sevenfold. In fact, some of you hate them so much that you added your own answer to last week’s poll to tell us that you haven’t even heard the album yet but it definitely sucks. For the poll results we’ve combined that user-added answer with our original “It sucks” answer, and the results are overwhelmingly in favor of Avenged Sevenfold sucking. We’ve also removed some other user-added answers that were useless / said the exact same thing as other answers.

• “It’s their best yet; it tops even City of Evil by a notch.”
  31 votes (16%)
• “Good, but not their best; City of Evil is still where it’s at.”
  30 votes (16%)
• “Waking the Fallen was their best record, and since then the band has gone to shit.”
  23 votes (12%)
• “It sucks. This band sucks. All of their albums suck.” PLUS “I Haven’t herd [sic] it.. It Sucks” (user-added)
  87 combined votes (45%)

Oh well; Axl and I tried to show you guys the light. You’re missing out — especially if you haven’t even listened yet!

-VN

When we interviewed ex-Eighteen Visions singer James Hart a few weeks ago about his new solo project and record deal with Island, Hart mentioned that he was considering Nickelback’s Daniel Adair to play drums on the record. According to a blog on James Hart’s MySpace page, Adair is confirmed as the drummer, and studio-bassist extraordinaire Chris Chaney (Jane’s Addiction, Rob Zombie, Tommy Lee, Alanis Morisette, Avril Lavigne, Daughtry, etc) will handle the low end. As of an Oct. 21 blog post, tracking for bass and drums is complete.

According to an Oct. 10 blog post:

Neal Tiemann (who has played on all the demos and even written a few licks) will be taking care of all guitar work on the album. Neal is one of the great young unknown talents in the music world. His name will ring more than a few bells in days to come.

The Oct 21 blog post also mentions that Hart has “also got another special guest player on his way down right now to leave some personal touch and flare on a song or 2.” So it still comes as somewhat of a surprise that an unsourced report on Blabbermouth announced today that none other than Synyster Gates of Avenged Sevenfold will play guitar on Hart’s album. Presumably this is the special guest player. Avenged and Eighteen Visions go way back — A7X used to open for 18V in their early Orange County days and have done several tours together.

I just got a big boner for this album.

-VN

Here’s an idea for everyone: let’s argue about the new Avenged Sevenfold album some more, shall we? Vote your opinion, then commence the trash-talking and flaming in the comments section. Ready? GO!

-VN

Nothing brings out the commenters like posts about Avenged Sevenfold, nothing brings out the haters like posts with lots of comments, and haters drive traffic. And we like traffic, hence we like haters. In case you missed it, MTV’s The Leak now has the entire Avenged Sevenfold album for streaming so all you can haters can head on over there and actually listen to the stuff you’re pre-emptively hating on. Close your eyes and actually listen to the music for a minute instead of letting the band’s haircuts and tattoos inform your opinion.

-VN

Dude. Come on. Anyone who says the new Avenged Sevenfold album is gay is totally gay.

You know how I know they’re gay? ‘Cause, in all seriousness, the new Avenged Sevenfold album is kinda gay. And it takes a man really secure in his heterosexuality to admit that it’s really freakin’ good in spite of – nay, because of – its mild gayness. ‘Cause Avenged Sevenfold is a good album. A good album to fuck girls to.

Click to read more…

Boy is there a lot on this record — thick production, strings, slide guitar, vocal harmonies, awesome riffs, scorching solos… and it’s a lot to digest. But your uncles Vince and Axl got together last night for the first “official” listen — that is to say with bong in one hand and lighter in the other, speakers cranked — and good lord. Avenged Sevenfold is easily a candidate for best record of the year — it’s definitely in the Top 5. “Scream,” “Afterlife,” and “Brompton Cocktail ” are absolute facemelters, while “Dear God” is nearly a country ballad. No it’s not their heaviest, and no they haven’t sold out — but it is by far the most creative A7X record to date. This record is going to be good for many, many, many spins.

Dame To Kill For has a detailed song-by-song review of the record. It’s a fan-girl point of view, but for a description of what’s physically happening on each track it’s spot on.

-VN

Just before the weekend set in, MetalSucks got word that two of the most important releases of October have now leaked; Coheed & Cambria’s No World For Tomorrow (Oct. 23) and Avenged Sevenfold’s self-titled new album (Oct. 30). This writer hasn’t listened to the new Coheed yet, but I’m sure you kids will love it. As for the new Avenged Sevenfold… fuck… yeah!!

Where to Find ‘em: Peeps Bucket has the new Coheed & Cambria. We can’t find a blog who has a link for the new Avenged Sevenfold, but if you’ve got google, a brain, and a torrent application you should have no problem finding it.

-VN

The folks over at Hasanur Blog have posted a recently leaked track of “Gunslinger” from Avenged Sevenfold’s upcoming self-titled album. Holy… shit. “Gunslinger” is another half-ballad, half-rocker like “Seize the Day” from City of Evil; it’s like somebody put Axl Rose epic vocals on top of Richie Sambora acoustic cowboy chords… and then injected just the right amount of perfectly cheesy pop-metal into it. Call them cheesy if you want, but somehow Avenged Sevenfold always manage to be cheesy in good taste… brie, jarsberg, or gruyere… no cheddar or swiss for these guys.

Avenged Sevenfold drops October 30 on Columbia.

-VN

Gotta hand it to Avenged Sevenfold’s record label (or whoever is handling their marketing/PR) — this is a pretty damn cool contest. According to Avenged Sevenfold’s MySpace blog, anyone who pre-orders Avenged Sevenfold’s new album on iTunes within the next two weeks also gets two exclusive tracks; a bonus live version of “Bat Country” live from New York City and a “jam-along” version of “Almost Easy” that has Synyster Gates’s guitar solo removed so you can shred over top of it.

To enter the contest, fans need to film themself playing their own solo and upload it to YouTube, then enter at the band’s official website, although apparently the band doesn’t want anyone entering THAT badly, as they’ve failed to set up a page at the given address as of the time of this writing. ANYWAY, Gates will judge whose solo is the best and the winner will receive a Synyster Gate’s Signature Model guitar from Schecter Guitar Research, autographed by the full band, plus a pair of tickets and meet & greet passes to an upcoming Avenged Sevenfold show.

Pretty cool. If I was any sort of half-decent shredder I’d enter the contest. Hell, maybe I will anyway. I’m sure some of our MetalSucks shredmeisters will have a go at it — and we’d love to hear them.

You can get the bonus tracks by pre-ordering the new record through iTunes.

-VN

This recent interview (courtesy of Melissa Smith of Prime Video Magazine) with M. Shadows (vocals) and Synyster Gates (guitar) of Avenged Sevenfold proves what anyone who has seen/heard interview footage of M. Shadows already knew: M. Shadows is kind of an idiot. The guy may be a sick performer and talented vocalist — hell, I’ll even give a nod to his abilities as a producer of both the Confession and his own band — but just listen to the guy talk, and Einstein he ain’t. Let’s just say that it isn’t a stretch to figure out why this guy actually thinks our troops are fighting for American freedom in Iraq and that there actually is an Iraq/9-11/Bin Laden connection.

Avenged Sevenfold will be released October 30th on Warner Bros. Records. Visit Avenged Sevenfold on MySpace to hear the new single “Almost Easy.”

-VN

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