Album Review: Avenged Sevenfold - 'Life Is But A Dream'
Avenged Sevenfold releases their highly anticipated eighth studio album ‘Life is But a Dream’ which follows the singles ‘We Love You’ and ‘Nobody’.
‘Life is But a Dream’ has been written and recorded over the span of four years, it was produced by Joe Barresi and Avenged Sevenfold and was mixed by Andy Wallace. The album is inspired by French philosopher Albert Camus’s novel ‘The Stranger’ which argues that the only thing that is certain in life is the inevitability of death, making ‘Life is But a Dream’ Avenged Sevenfold’s boldest statement and most revolutionary work to date. The album is a journey through an existential crisis with a very personal exploration into the meaning, purpose and value of human existence with the anxiety of death always looming.
Since Avenged Sevenfold’s 2001 debut album ‘Sounding the Seventh Trumpet’ the band refuses to stay in one musical place, which is reflected on their new album ‘Life is But a Dream’ which is a timeless work of art that spans across many genres. The six-minute single ‘Nobody’ juxtaposes the metal sound replaced by experimental vocals, in Avenged Sevenfold’s interview with TRAX PODCAST they stated that the earworm is like no other on the album and with their in-depth song-writing skills shows the headspace that the band are coming from and the concept that they wish to put forth. ‘Nobody’ hounds Camus’ novel with lyrics ‘I walk with death in final exhalation. And come apart through violent separation.’ This shows that the singer is aware of the death from the beginning of the single, Avenged Sevenfold also references the myth of Icarus who wanted to the sun and got so close he died, ‘This is “I am all” as “I am none”. Here we fly so high, no, I, no coming down. I am the sun.’
The newest single ‘We Love You’ depicts society forcing us to constantly consume everything we possibly can and if we do not halt our overconsumption, it may be our downfall with lyrics like ‘More power, more pace. More money, more taste.’ This single was accompanied with a music video by artist Ryan McKinnon who crafted an original visual that reflects the depiction of the constant force of society as the video begins peacefully before society takes over and begins building at a crazy pace, till an error message appears on screen and we are taken back to before the pressure of society began, ‘It was all you deserved anyway. Sunny days.’
My personal favourites from ‘Life is But a Dream’ is Mattel which compared to the other tracks on this album is certainly the heaviest one, with lyrics of ‘Now I know this might sound crazy, but I've smelled the plastic daisies and it seems we've found ourselves in hell.’ This is a reference to ‘Nobody’ and ‘We Love You’ as society has killed off everything natural and everything has been commoditized to plastic and is all out of our control. To further this message the lyrics, ‘in case we don't see you again; Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.’ which references The Truman Show showing that no one is in control and even if we think that we have free will, we do not. This also links with Albert Camus as he rejected existentialism and referenced this theory as absurdism.
Words by Bethany Simms
