By Grouch Rating 2 Scowls City of Evil
City of Evil
Thursday, 09 April 2009 10:49 | 
Author: The Grouch | 
Recently I've been listening to an album called City of Evil by the band Avenged Sevenfold. I had never heard of these guys until GabeO (anyone who has read this blog knows GabeO is a friend of mine who is literally a walking encyclopedia of music; if it happened after Les Paul invented electricity GabeO probably has a copy ) gave me a copy of this album. According to the Wikipedia Avenged Sevenfold commonly refereed to as A7X (?) is a band from southern California who achieved mainstream success with this album.
Mainstream success? I feel so dirty now...
Actually in all fairness I must say these guys are good musicians. They can really play well and the record is produced quite well. In fact the songs on the album are all quite good - musically.
Something however just doesn't sit right with me. I can't quite put my finger on it. It may be the Iron Maiden album cover rip off, or that some of the music sounds like Europe or Whitesnake. It reminds me of a lot of the hair metal of the 80s. I don't mean the Twisted Sister stuff that I thought of as taking a poke at the scene in the same vein as Spinal Tap (A very funny movie) but more along the lines of anyone of a handful of bands in the Bon Jovi mold but more evil - kind of. It's a safe evil - the kind that you can listen to and tell your mom "oh its just music to play dungeons and dragons by"
I guess the thing is that it all seems so scripted. Now is the time for the melodic solo, followed by the double bass drum roll and the gothic choir.
Like I said, the music is good - perhaps too good. Black Sabbath kicked ass - Paranoid is a rocking song that any young metal band cuts their teeth on - you can play it in the garage. The stuff on this album is out of reach for a garage band. Out of reach not simply because the average garage band doesn't have the chops, but out of reach because the average garage band doesn't have the production facilities or a gothic choir to back them up.
For my money if I want to see a Rock opera I'll stick to Alice Cooper - whose music despite his elaborate stage show can be played as straight forward hard rock and roll. Guitar, Bass, Drums and a singer can do Cold Ethel justice.
Despite GabeO's usual right on taste - I give this album two scowls on the Grouch scale.