Surprise album drops were all the rage in 2016 and in the avalanche of instant releases you could be forgiven for missing the latest from Californian metal heavyweights Avenged Sevenfold. After a legal smackdown with their longstanding label Warner Bros, the former Download headliners unexpectedly put out their self-funded seventh album, The Stage, through Capitol Records late last year.
The obvious thing might have been to play the back-to-basics card of metal veterans heroically cleansing themselves of corporate folderol by returning to (hard)core values. Instead, Avenged Sevenfold unveiled a zeitgeist-tapping concept album about artificial intelligence with a trippy VR-enhanced launch on top of the Capitol tower, and have just embarked on their most extravagantly staged tour to date.
Underneath retina-scorching screens and a giant cosmic cube broadcasting spiralling starfields, the five-piece methodically discharge booming, arena-filling songs that are as hefty as they are heavy, with few clocking in at under five minutes. These industrial assemblages of growling riffs and fret-melting solos have a default minor-key menace, yet the overall atmosphere is surprisingly joyous even before beefsteak singer M Shadows presides over a nervy fan’s on-stage marriage proposal (she said yes).
The cumulative effect is one of shock and roar, a two-hour dreadnought of burnished metal leavened by the sinewy interlocking melodies of guitarists Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates. Of all the leftfield touches, though, perhaps the most appealing is the parping brass breakdown of new song Sunny Disposition, a very different kind of devil horns.
- At Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, 12 January. Box office: 0844 493 6666. Then touring.
