Rating: NN
You can’t be entirely sure how seriously to take these guys, with their flying-skull logo and excessive personal primping, but for argument’s sake, let’s pretend Avenged Sevenfold are 100 per cent dead serious. As a hard-rock-meets-pop-metal outfit, the former metalcore band’s fourth disc isn’t as vicious or as heavy as they might have wished, due to songs crammed with so-so riffs that don’t quite pack the threatened punch.
Likewise underwhelming are the over-extended, too-melodramatic vocals of M. Shadows. The end result is a safe, predictable record that could very well be Metallica-lite (like the new Metallica), in addition to being pretty close to silly.
