Far Beyond The Lighted Stage

One of metal’s biggest bands has thrown caution to the wind, embracing psychedelics, absurdity and a wilful disregard for the limits of genre. Avenged Sevenfold’s frontman M Shadows gives Prog an insight into the philosophy, sound and pursuit of discomfort that all shaped Life Is But A Dream…

- David West

“We were cognisant of the fact that this could get crazy,” says M Shadows about his band’s genrediverse new album. Despite their status as torchbearers for the next generation of heavy metal stadium-fillers, Avenged Sevenfold first revealed their interest in colouring outside the lines on 2016’s The Stage, which ventured into prog metal territory. However, Life Is But A Dream… goes above and way beyond anything they’ve done before.

“As we started the writing, we were really attracted to the music that was making us feel uncomfortable or things that would throw you off-kilter,” says Shadows. The album moves from metal riffs to lullabies, techno and industrial to lounge music, often within the space of a single song. “We had this philosophy where we didn’t want to stay anywhere too long,” says Shadows. “We wanted things to jump around and be more ADHD to get in and out of these ideas quicker. I think it becomes a lot more exciting, interesting, discombobulated. It’s all over the place.”

Many bands might feel nervous stepping so far outside their comfort zone, but Shadows felt it was essential “because the discomfort we were feeling on the other side, from doing the same, was worse.”

While Avenged embraced the concept of using the studio as a creative tool, Shadows wanted to avoid the slick, over-produced sound that’s now commonplace in metal. They used real instruments to create the sounds they were seeking instead of samples and plug-ins.