Waking the Fallen sits alongside Killswitch Engage’s The End of Heartache as a massively influential album in my love for contemporary metal music. As I’ve detailed endlessly over the past few years I was a huge punk rocker during my formative years. Avenged Sevenfold was one of those bands that, despite being a heavy metal band at their core, slipped through the musical genre wall via osmosis and found a large swathe of fans in the punk rock scene. Whether it was their regular stints on Vans Warped Tour or placement on punk music compilation albums, they helped introduce me (and many of my friends) to heavy metal for the first time. And the fact that the song “Chapter Four” was featured on the soundtrack for NHL ’04 (a game which I legitimately logged over 200+ hours playing) made it even easier to get into these guys.
But alongside the cultural factors that put Avenged Sevenfold on my radar, the musical output makes it easy to understand why they stuck on like glue. This album is simply a masterclass in musicianship, blending precision and fury in a way that few metalcore albums of the era could match. M. Shadows’ vocals soar with strength, balancing melody and aggression with a control and knack for pop-like hooks that worm their way into your brain and don’t ever leave. The Reverend’s drumming is relentless, a flurry of double bass, technical fills, and off-kilter rhythms that push each song forward with chaotic energy and put him down as one of the decade’s best drummer’s full stop. And Synyster Gates’ guitar work is nothing short of jaw-dropping, his solos weaving neoclassical flourishes with lightning-fast shredding and a knack (again) for melody that made those parts hummable as well as head bang-able.
At that time of my life Avenged Sevenfold felt like something far more ambitious than just a heavy metal band. They felt like a portal into a new world. And the fact that Thrice guitarist Teppei Teranishi even lent a hand during the pre-recording phase (playing on a few demos with the band) made it all the more poetic. Twenty years following the release this thing still rips as hard as it did when I was a teenager. It’s a helluva album and one I’ll continue to revisit for as long as I’m around.
Standout Songs: “Chapter Four”, “Unholy Confessions”, “I Won’t See You Tonight Part 1”, “Desecrate Through Reverence”, “Eternal Rest”, “And all Things Will End”
