Customer Reviews

Nightmare

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By now we all know the story of how "Nightmare" came about. Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan died on December 28th 2009 at the young age of 28 and the band were very upset and sad about the talented drummer`s death. For a while it seemed as if there might not be an Avenged Sevenfold anymore, a sad thought if you love the band. The then upcoming fifth album`s songs had all been written and A7X (as they are known on the internet) were getting to record them in early 2010. Needless to say death of The Rev changed all this. Band members didn`t want to go on without Jimmy but they said themselves it was the best way to remember Jimmy and the right thing to do. Jimmy was an especially talented drummer so replacing him for the album would not be easy and therefore the rest of the bands didn`t want just anyone to replace him, the task was seemingly impossible. Dream Theatre's Mike Portnoy offered his help to the band and they gladly accepted knowing how much Jimmy loved his drumming style, as A7X said "he`s the only one who could do justice to Jimmy`s playing". I would rather have had Sullivan play the songs himself but that was obviously not possible, besides Portnoy is an excellent drummer and does an incredible job filling in for Jimmy. Mike himself said "I`m not filling in Jimmy`s shoes, I`m merely lacing them up for him``, that would be the best description of his playing on the album.

The band had a really tough time recording this album that`s for sure. I think the best way to express this would be trough a quote by M Shadows taken from Metal Hammer magazine July issue 206:

"Jimmy wrote this record with us and I don`t think the last Avenged album should be the last record he put out you know? As a group we`re still really excited about the songs we`ve written and we`re excited about the record. Jimmy would call me every night and tell how excited he was. For all five of us to write the record together, it was important to put this thing out and show everybody Jimmy`s legacy so people can see exactly where we were going before he died. After that we don`t need to make any big decisions but let`s make the record."

Avenged Sevenfold`s future remains uncertain but they will tour in 2010 in support of the album with Mike Portnoy as the drummer. After that tour no one knows yet.

As for the songs themselves they`re great, I`ll go into details on a few of them. I must have heard the first single and title-track Nightmare about a thousand times before I hear the rest of the album, a terrific song with lots of emotion in it, and a powerful song. Welcome to the family is a terrific song, starts with an excellent drum roll by Portnoy and really kicks in with Shadows screaming into the mic. Buried Alive could be considered as a ballad done Avenged Sevenfold style, slow but with lots of aggression in M Shadows`s voice, a calm song and worth that`s pleasant to listen to if you like slower ballad-type of songs. The lyrics are great. Natural Born Killer is what you would expect out of a song by this band, lots of energy and a typical A7X song, excellent. God Hates Us is another very good one, in fact one of my favourite songs on the album. Fiction is an important moment on Nightmare, we hear Jimmy`s voice in it and it`s just so sad. The 10: 56 closing song "Save Me" is incredible and unpredictable, an 11 minutes monster and truly the best way to close the album!

Overall I think A7X fans will be genuinely pleased with the album. There`s not a huge change musically on Nightmare except Portnoy replaces Jimmy (and does a great job I must add) and perhaps it sounds darker than any other A7X album.
I have to say I`m really glad they recorded "Nightmare", it turned out to be a great album. Given the death of Jimmy it`s no surprise that "Nightmare" is a very dark album, after all the band went through a tough time after Jimmy`s death and it clearly affected them. It`s a tough album to listen to in the good sense because it`s hard to realise all the events surrounding the band lately are further evident on Nightmare. M Shadows said that he wanted to keep the things that Jimmy like on the album, especially since Jimmy had more input on this album than he ever did on an album before. I`m not going to say "it`s the best album they ever did!" or something like that because to me it`s not, however it`s damn good and I have a lot of appreciation for it, it needs to be heard by fans.

I only have good things to say about The Rev, he was an amazing drummer and always gave his 100%. The news of his death was very shocking to me, I realised that the next album would either be the downfall of a great band or very special. Nightmare is a really dark album that mostly deals with death in general, that`s how I would define it. Oh and also an amazing album from finish to end. It`s hard to please every A7X fans but I think Nightmare has something for everyone of them, generally fans seem to appreciate it. The band should be applauded for making this album in the first place. 4 ' stars.

There are some songs on this album that I just cannot listen to, for personal reasons. It's very hard for me to listen to Fiction in particular. It just sounds too much like a suicide note for me, it breaks my heart.

On the flip side, though, some tracks were epic because they sounded so much like the young A7x I fell in love with. God Hates Us and Welcome to the Family are definitely my favourites because they reminded me of the days of Waking the Fallen, but with the lyrical maturity of the self titled album.