Album Review: Avenged Sevenfold - Hail To The King

If there was ever an American band that sounds like America, it is Avenged Sevenfold. Like fellow patriots George W. Bush, Chris Brown and Michael Bay, these Californian rockers have never allowed other people's opinions or common sense stand in the way of their doing whatever the fuck they want to do. 

What they want to do, as becomes immediately apparent on their sixth album, Hail To The King, is play balls-out stadium rock and to be like Guns N' Roses, minus those god damn sissy ballads. 

Paring back on the intricacies of 2010's Nightmare, songs like the title track and This Means War are beefy slabs of Zacky Vengeance and Synyster Gates showing off their rock god guitar licks, while new drummer Arin Ilejay somehow manages to make a drum kit sound more bombastic than Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight and frontman M. Shadows does his best Axl wail. It's an obvious formula, but A7X manage to keep it interesting for the album's duration.

Hail To The King is the sonic equivalent of a stretch Hummer monster truck with Bald Eagle decals and a vanity licence plate driving through a McDonald's drive-thru to order a McGriddle and an extra, extra-large Dr Pepper. The thing is big, decadent and completely over the top. And like that McGriddle and Dr P, Hail To The King might leave you feeling a little queasy afterwards, but when you're there and you're in the moment, its delights are undeniable. Avenged Sevenfold, FUCK YEAH!