Album Review no.3: Sounding The Seventh Trumpet - Avenged Sevenfold

After reading through Cristangrant's review for this, my first thought was "what a great way to begin listen to Avenged Sevenfold" let's just say that I wasn't expecting something quite this bad. Realise that I've listened to this twice in order to review, and again while I'm doing the review in order to get the best possible opinion of the album without having to resort to memory.

I've decided that I won't be putting an information section down in the reviews, as I hate doing it and it genuinely ruins my motivation for writing anything. If you really want to know about the album, then just look it up online, you'll get more detail in your answers in any case.

To End The Rapture :
The first song is nothing more than a glorified solo combined with the shoddy vocals that are a constant in this album. As well as that, the song doesn't even go for 90 seconds and doesn't set the tone of the album (unless you count bad as a tone). The instrumental work can only be described as basic and the song's structure is nonexistent. Thankfully, the length of the song means that it only hurts for a small amount of time. One thing that must be stated is that the drummer is good throughout the album, it's just not enough to fix the songs.
3/10

Turn The Other Way:
This song suffers from a multitude of problems as well. The biggest problem is definitely the screaming, I have never liked it in the slightest and even if instrumental sections of a song are perfect, I will usually still hate the song (a big example of this is Opeth, while their instrumental work is stunning, the vocals irritate me to the point where I don't enjoy listening to them). The riff in the song is repetitive, obnoxious, unpleasantly loud to the point it drowns out the singer and does the awful thing of stopping for a brief period every time it is played. The part about drowning out the vocals might secretly be a blessing however, as when M Shadows isn't growling lick a sick dog, he's using one of the whiniest singing voices I have ever heard. The songs length also sucks as it ends up dragging horribly as well, which isn't helped by the fact that the actual song also feels like it meanders quite a lot. Oh god, the second song and I'm already getting annoyed.
2/10

Darkness Surrounding:
While this song isnt good at all, I must praise it for not offending my ears like the previous 2 trainwrecks. However, as I said, the song isn't good by any means. The song starts off with stupid screaming and a section that sounds more suited to the middle of a song, before jumping into a riff that's actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, it keeps switching between that and the starting section, which is quite generic. The worst things about the first half of the song are the fact that it feels dull and that the low quality screams are persistent. The second half is more complex and less boring, but suffers from M. Shadows using his clean voice, which isn't all that much better. Once again, the song could have been cut down by a minute and it would have been a better song. The only reason I don't despise this song as much is because of the decent riff and the fact that it resembles a song.
4/10

The Art Of Subconscious Illusion:
The instrumental work in this song is actually good for the most part, if a little repetitive. Unfortunately M. Shadows goes ahead and destroys what could potentially be a great song with his godawful vocals. The section with the various voice clips would work better if the song wasn't all over the place. To make something like that work, you need a better structured song in order for them to feel like more than just a gimmick( a great example being Honor Thy Father by Dream Theater, using the heavy middle section of the song to add further impact to the samples) but this song has none of that.
4/10

We Come Out At Night:
This is the point in the album where another problem becomes clear, every song sounds almost the same so far. The interest in the album begins to disappear at this point as every song has been extremely bad and generic. This one is no exception. The song's instrumentals are less about actual good music and more interested about speed and volume. The speed is always nearly the same and the singing is once again, whiny or screaming, both of which are terrible. I can't distinguish any of the songs from one another and this one might just be the most boring of them all.
4/10

Lips Of Deceit:
The song starts Of nicely, with a moment where M. Shadows sounds ok, followed by a nice piece of guitar work. The screams kick in and instantly ruin the feeling that the song is going to be amazing. That said, the instrumental work is great in this song, the drums are awesome, the guitar is solid, and the bass line is really good as well. The screams definitely annoy me, but this is a genuinely ok song. I can't give it more than that, because of how much I vehemently hate M. Shadow's screaming, it's more annoying than the average screamer.
6/10

Warmness On The Soul:
And Now For Something Completely Different. The refreshing nature of this song comes from the fact that it's a ballad in an album that before this point wanted to shred on their instruments. That said, the song is still extremely mediocre due to the fact that it does nothing special or particularly emotional, M. Shadows still has an annoying voice, and the section with the guitar is way too short for it to have any point. Compared to many other songs, this is a masterpiece, but upon closely looking at it, it's not anything special at all.
5/10

An Epic Of Time Wasted:
What a fitting title for my feelings about this album. It starts off as a mediocre song, AND THEN THE TERRIBLE SCREAMS START!!! Honestly, most of this album would be tolerable if the vocalist was replaced, he is the cause for most of this earbleed inducing trash. The last minute of the song is easily the worst offender, it's a combination of the vocalist's terrible voice, combined with screaming. As M. Shadows so "expertly" said "So much time I've wasted, that I'd never thought it come to this."
3/10

Breaking Their Hold:
The first 5 seconds of this song tell you all you need to know. It's nothing more than a minute of screaming that is being drowned out by the instruments that seem to have no purpose in the song other than to play fast. I must point out something that I have neglected to mention yet, the sound production is atrocious, the instruments usually drown out the singer, and the instruments are usually drowned by the drums. All in all, this is an entirely pointless song that goes nowhere.
2/10

Forgotten Faces:
What can be said about this song that hasn't been repeated so many times in this review? What's that? The answer is nothing? Cool, onto the next song
4/10

Thick And Thin:
My god, seriously get rid of the vocalist, there is not a single song that he doesn't crap all over with his abysmal voice. I'm running out of new ground to cover at this pint because all of the songs suffer from the exact same problems. The vocalist makes screaming not just sound bad, but sound pathetic.
4/10

Streets:
This is the only song on the album that doesn't make me want to claw my ears out. For the one and only time on the album, M. Shadows doesn't sound like garbage. The song is genuinely good as it takes a tamer path and a musical style that feels more fitting for the vocals. It feels like it came from another (better) album by them, it ends when it needs to and is well done all around.
7/10

Shattered by broken dreams:
It feels like a discount version of Warmness On The Soul, which would be awful if it were on a different album, but even worse here since it feels even more like a rehash. To top off the fact that it begins sounding like a copy of a mediocre song, the screams start and ruin what was already a bad song.This is probably my least favourite song on the album, which is an accomplishment given the competition. A lazy rehash, followed by a display of pure stupidity, followed by an awkward transition back to the lazy rehash. To top all of this off, the song goes on for 7 minutes, leaving you bored as well as frustrated to have wasted your time.
2/10

Final Thoughts:
All in all, this album is pure garbage, the production is bad, the singing is appalling, the instrumentals are dull and based purely on speed for the most part and in the end, I felt angry after and during this review. As stated at the start, I didn't actually expect the album to be quite this terrible.

3*2 + 2*3 + 5*4 + 5 + 6 + 7 - 3*4 = 38/100

Comments

Yeah, this one sucks, I tried listening to the whole album once, It was very boring and bad. It's cringey, etc. - visitor (12/1/2017)

Wow, 40/100 is pure garbage? You’re a harsh critic, 40/100 is a mediocre album for me, lol. - visitor (2/12/2018)

My thoughts on the matter are, a 4/10 song is not very good, avoid it due to the fact that you probably won't enjoy it. With an album on the other hand, instead of approximately 5 minutes of low quality music, you get anywhere between 40 - 80 minutes on average of bad music, making it that much worse. In this case, while I wouldn't get so annoyed about Darkness Surrounding on its own, listening to it after what is already about 7 minutes of terrible stuff makes it seem worse than it actually is. - visitor (2/15/2018)