It is the year 2006: metalcore forms an integral part of my early teenage years. Bullet for My Valentine had just released The Poison, Trivium had just released Ascendancy, Killswitch Engage had just released The End of Heartache, Atreyu had just released The Curse, and Avenged Sevenfold had just released… City of Evil (which isn't really metalcore per se). With those releases, I had had my first taste of unclean vocals. The most lasting influence of these was Avenged Sevenfold (the early songs of my own band are at times direct a7x ripoff). I started going through the discography of Avenged Sevenfold backwards from City of Evil, and obviously eventually landed on their debut – Sounding the Seventh Trumpet. Apart from influencing my own music, Avenged Sevenfold had another influence on my taste in music, although I only realized this way later. The elements I particularly liked in Avenged Sevenfold – simple and catchy three-cord melodies and fast and over-the-top double time drumming – stemmed from eighties' skate punk from the West Coast. The biggest and best skate punk band is of course Bad Religion. It is no coincidence that a7x's current drummer is also the longest-serving drummer of Bad Religion. The best song on this record is "Turn the Other Way", but the excerpt today is "Darkness Surrounding" because you can hear the punk in it more easily.
My take on Avenged Sevenfold: This album has its ups and downs, but the three best songs – the aforementioned "Turn the Other Way" and "Darkness Surrounding" as well as "We Come out at Night" are among the best Avenged Sevenfold songs, period. The next two Avenged Sevenfold albums, Waking the Fallen and City of Evil are more consistent and both very good. The fourth, self-titled record has its moments but is not as good as the previous ones in my opinion. The fifth record – Nightmare – has two good songs on it ("Buried Alive" and "Fiction"). The rest of the discography can be skipped. Unlike many fans at the time, I don't think a7x got worse due to the change in musical style (the first two records are teenage metalcore, but from the third album onwards, the style is different) but due to the 2009 death of the band's most talented and visionary member, the original drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan.
influence: my own music, Bad Religion and other skate punk
excerpt: Darkness Surrounding (YouTube)
This post was retroactively compiled on 2024-01-19 from an old Facebook post.