Customer Reviews

Waking The Fallen

5 star:		(206)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(15)

 

 

Resume:
I have been listening to metal of all kinds faithfully for the past 16 years since I was hooked by Maiden and Metallica. I moved on to Slayer, Dream Theater, Overkill, King's X. Then on to Fear Factory, Paradise Lost, Iced Earth, Therion, Morbid Angel, At the Gates, In Flames, Cradle of Filth, Nevermore, Nightwish, Saviour Machine, Shadows Fall, etc., etc., etc. You get the picture. I played in a band, I have seen dozens of bands in concert, I own over 700 metal CDs, I hosted a metal radio show for 4 years, I have defended modern metal to my (classic rock, stoner rock, top 40, dance, etc.) friends. I am not trying to be holier than thou, MY POINT IS:

Review:
"Waking the fallen" ranks up there with whatever your classics are. Period. I'm talking top 5 material. It is a "genre-buster" that is bound to unite fans like Guns n Roses did with AFD or Queensryche did with Mindcrime or Slayer did with Reign in Blood. I had a friend who couldn't stand Queensryche but when asked about Operation:Mindcrime, he said "Awesome, one of the best records ever." This is the type of impact this album can have. As with those 3 examples, where Waking the Fallen ends up on your list depends on your tastes.

The first track I heard was "Unholy Confessions" and I loved the Swedish melodic death opening, then was blown away when I heard the clean vocals. By the time the song was 1 minute old, I knew I had to have it. When the punk/pop chorus hit, I knew I was hearing something special. That song continued to weave in and out of genres seamlessly - almost getting better with every second. And when it was over, I had withdrawl. Funny thing is, it turns out to be one of the "weakest" songs on the album! Of course, there are no "weak" songs on it, that is the beauty of a classic - you are excitited to hear each and every track. Every song has at least 5 pallatable metallic influences lovingly executed as Avenged Sevenfold makes a sound totally original. This is the way it happens. Was Lord of the Rings a TRUELY original story? No, Tolkien would be the first to admit it was an amalgamation of his influences. Think "The Sixth Sense" was REALLY original? No, M. Night gives all the glory to Hitchcock. ANYWAY, Waking the Fallen continues to Genesis Chapter 4...oops I mean Chapter 4. :-) Majestic fusion of melodic metal with a rock hard background riff. How cool is the vocal on this track? It's at this point I admit this is too good for words so I just smile and listen. Then there is "Remenissions" and I just laughed. That is all I could do. It was so intensly good I could just laugh at the joy it was providing me. I was thinking "All of sudden they are a black metal band?! Then Sepultura shows up?! And HOLY SHIZZLE what is that acoustic perfection for 20 wonderous seconds?! And KEEP AWAY FROM ME! HELL YEAH! I don't know who I am telling this to, but I agree!" Then it's fast again...it's demonically slow again...it's a Slayer riff...it's a MAIDEN breakdown! Then more fantastic clear singing until the fake out ending where some death metal takes you out. WOW. There is no doubt that is one of the best songs ever written.
This is already too long, so I won't go into detail about the other tracks, except to say everything good you've read about "I won't see you tonight" is true. Is it too much to ask for another masterpiece for your next recordng Avenged Sevenfold???? Please say you can accomplish the near impossible and do it again...

I'm not a kid, the site won't process the other review form, so I turned to this as an alternative

Avenged Sevenfold is an amazing metal band. They're somewhat nu-metal, with blends of classic metal riffs and mordern harcore. Having said that, Avenged Sevenfolds newest album, Waking the Fallen is ingenious and a clever work of music. Their music is dark, yet uplifting. To give their music that uplifting quality, they obviously have to go emo, but rest assure they stayed away from it. It's a little bit of emo, mixed with some scremo, stirred up just right, so their music can be described as a perfect balance between being to emotional and being too hardcore. They sort of look like the band AFI but rock with the power of Iron Maiden. Don't let their age fool you either, they have very intelligent and mature lyrics. They aren't one of those many bands out there. These guys are unique. Sort of that sweet and sick mix with many bands fail to perfect. Avenged Sevenfold isn't only for metalheads, most of their tracks on the cd can be enjoyed by almost anyone with a good taste for "music" in general. Their lyrics and vocals are poetic and have a deep meaninging within them. These guys are bottom line brilliant !

Let me walk you through the tracks and describe them briefly -:

1. Waking the Fallen - The band starts out this soft, kind of jamming session with ere'ey and suspensful music playing and soft vocals. It impolres the user to "Wake the ones and rise tonight". A perfect setting while going into the fast paced Unholy confessions. Ingenious, and a perfect start off setting ! 10/10

2. Unholy Confessions - One of the best songs in their album. It is an instantly likeable track, and you will get hooked on it almost immediately. It portrays this deep sense of confessions, to a girl with a tinge of screaming vocals, amazing guitars and catchy chorus. 10/10

3. Reminessions 10/10

4. Chapter Four 10/10

These two tracks are probably the most mature songs, each having their own diverse meaning. Reminessions talks about vengence and what the world feels like with that in mind. Chapter Four has some screaming vocals with a great chorus. A very catchy and great song. The drumming and axe playing provides the perfect backdrop for lyrics about desperation, skeletons, murder, vengence. Amazing is a understatement.

5. Desecrate through Reverence 10/10

6. Eternal Rest 8/10

These songs tend to remind me of Killswitch Engage. They are done well, and get right into your face. This is where they get heavy but still put forward the meaningful lyrics.

7. Second Heartbeat 10/10

8. Radiant Eclipse 9/10

Second Heartbeat is an amazing track, starts off with amazing guitaring, and stays in there making it an all out perfect song ! Good vocals find their way through some heavy thrash out music. Radiant Heartbeat, starts out with some good beats, and is a pretty good song, not one of the best in my opnion but still good enough.

9. I Won't See You Tonight Part. 1 10/10

10. I Won't See You Tonight Part 2 10/10

Just when you think these guys are an all out Metal band, this brilliant piece of art comes in. It starts out with very soothing keys played, not to mention so right into place. Then it picks up with some great guitars, still maintaining that emotional atmosphere. The start out of vocals just changes your whole mood if the start music couldn't. It continues through to make it one of the best goddamn song I've ever heard. The song (Part 1) implies to desperation and depression, and the guy pours his heart out. After the 9 minute long part 1 of the song. All the emo atmosphere, drops as Part 2 comes in with some heavy music and screaming vocals. The singer here snaps from all the desperation he put forward in Part 1. This is more like the sick and demented side of him, which came out due to pressures and tention. Together this makes some of the best 14 minutes of metal which anyone couldn't really put forward. The lyrics get you into this deep thought of what is taking place as well.

11. Claivoyant Disease 10/10

12. All the Things Will End 10/10

These tracks bring the disc to an end in the tightest way possible. Claivoyant Disease starts out great and overall makes one of the best songs on the album. These are 2 fast paced songs, implying to the new metal aspect of the genre. Even if they start playing this way now, they have already proved what they are capable off. Whether they choose to have Classical metal rifts or newer hardcore metal, or just stick with the blend, they sound good either way.

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Closing Statements : Waking the fallen is their best album so far, and is a great pick up for any music fan.

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The music scene nowadays is very disappointing. There is hardly anything out there that is worth buying anymore. It is very rare that a band comes out that actually impresses me. Avenged Sevenfold has done just that.

I can't get over just how great this band is. They combine elements in rock and metal music to create an assault of razor sharp riffs within a massive wall of sound. The guitarists are the main players on this record. They demonstrate their solo skills with perfection. The lead work is a force to be reckoned with. The song writing is also very interesting. You'll be jamming to an almost black metal assualt of vocals and guitars and it will suddenly turn into a disco beat (Eternal Rest). A lot of these songs hit the six minute mark, but always remain interesting and fun. Do yourself a favor and check these guys out.

Let's get one thing straight - A7X is easily THE best new band to emerge within a few years. I'm a big fan of many bands, but this one just blows them away. I can picture many years in the future, people will look at this album and think, "This is a masterpiece." And it is. This album is right up there with some of the best albums to date, like Rush's 2112, Iron Maiden's The Number of the Beast, and AFI's The Art of Drowning. A7X's first cd, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, while an amazing hardcore/metal album, is no comparison to this masterpeice.

Comparing the two albums, you may at first like STST more, as the intro to it, To End the Rapture, is amazing. On the other hand, Waking the Fallen (the song), is rather weak. But after the first songs are over, WTF's superiority completely emerges. The second song is Unholy Confessions, a brilliant work of heavy metal art, wich is creepily reminicent of 80's metal. It then goes into Chapter 4, an incredible vocal and instrumental powerhouse. Once you've reached Reminisions, you know this band is simply amazing, because the changes in tempo and volume, the at times extremely heavy and at others light and soft, its just a musical explosion of greatness.

Then the album takes a break from the brilliance, and does the song Desecrate Through Reverence. While this song is still great, its no where near the past three songs. But there's no worry, because then you get into one of the best songs on the album, Eternal Rest, which starts out with a CRAZY guitar solo by one of the greatest guitar players of all time, Synyster Gates. The song then slows down into one of the just plain coolest peices of music ever written. Then you get to Second Heartbeat, my personal favorite track on the album. Throughout the first 6 minutes of the song, its just an amazing song, but once you get to the guitar solo at the end, which is possibly THE greatest solo of all time, you're in love.

The album then settles down once again with Radiant Eclipse. Like Desecrate, this song isn't an instant favorite. But its still a great song. After this, all of a sudden you hear a piano. And the album goes into a power balad masterpiece called I Won't See You Tonight Part 1. This 9 minute work of art is simply such a great song throughout, its impossible to stop listening. After part 1, it goes into part 2, which is filled with anger, unlike the incredibly sad part 1. But this song is great too, and simply a joy to listen to.

After that, it slows things down with Clairvoyant Disease. While this song is a lot slower and softer than a lot of the tracks on this album, its definitely a great song. Then you get to the grand finale, And All things Will End. This song starts out aucustic, then immediatly goes into a great metal song, which like Unholy Confessions, is quite reminiscent of 80's metal. The album ends with a constantly slowing guitar solo by Gates, and you're left incredibly happy.

Basically, if you're into metal, this album is a must buy. There's not one bad moment on this cd, absolutely no filler. You can't get much better than this.

What the members of Avenged Sevenfold have crafted here is an incredibly aggressive, loud, and technically impressive album; one that just fills you with energy and makes you want to punt babies over houses. It's quite long, over an hour, but it never lets up.

It starts out with a cool, slow paced build-up of an intro, which leads to a kick-in-the-pants of a first actual song. The singer screams at the top of his lungs as he is supported by pounding drums and bass and killer guitars, and Waking the Fallen never lets up after that. This album is full of great hardcore sounds, especially on tracks like "Eternal Rest"

But the vocalist can do more than just shout himself hoarse, he can also sing, surprisingly. This comes out the most in "I Won't See You Tonight - Part 1", an incredible song that eschews hardcore antics for a beautiful, epic melody with relatively thoughtful lyrics about suicide. The track clocks in at around 9 minutes and is part of a larger 14 minute, 2 part behemoth of a song. Like I said, it's a long album, and if you like this kind of stuff, it is definitely worth it.

Every song on Waking the Fallen is good, but except for a couple like "I Won't See You Tonight", they all sound pretty similar and you can lose track of where one ends and another begins. But if that's something you can handle, you can't get much better metal today. 4.5 stars rounds up to 5.

Yes, so Ill admit it. The way these guys look is pretty cheesy, they do fit the description of your typical high school "goth". But behind the eye liner and fingernail polish they have loads of talent, and if you discredit a band simply because you dont like the way they look you are a moron.

The guitar in this album is exceptional, the guitarists have grown by leaps and bounds since Sounding The Seventh Trumpet. The riffs are much more epic and in more of a metalcore direction this album, which works very well. The drumming is also extremely impressive, very fast, and any drummer should appreciate the way he attacks the kit. M Shadows is a good vocalist in my opinion, although he is disliked by many. His screaming isnt the most intimidating that youll ever hear but it still sounds very good, and he obviously puts emotion into what he does. His clean voice is quite good, unlike other metalcore bands like Shadows Fall who have good screaming parts and awful clean vocals, M Shadows can really sing. I almost wish he would sing more.

The songs on this album are very long and creative, almost every song reaching the 5 minute mark (and the few that dont are off by mere seconds), and the songs never stay the same throughout. This is definitely something Id advise you to check out if you liked Avenged Sevenfolds previous albums, or if youre just looking for some good metalcore.

Just curious. I was suprised to see that this CD is over a year old. A friend sent me the video "Unholy Confessions" and I've been hooked. This is really GREAT music no matter what genre you try to "peg" it as. The best part for me is that no two songs sound alike and many are polar opposites. I recommend this to fans of Metallica, Iron Maiden, Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage, Slipknot, etc.... Great music!

Finally, a band with an absolutely INSANE amount of talent that still can appeal to the masses. Firstly to all the metalkid snobs out there complaining that they're trying to emulate the Gothenburg sound, you don't know how wrong you are. I'm a big fan of those bands too, but the talent of these guys is far far beyond the level of In Flames, Soilwork etc. And has it ever occured to you that the screaming might not be as heavy and death metallish because they just don't want to sound like that? M. Shadows blows away any other metal vocalist, be it death metal, black metal, thrash, whatever. Screaming really isn't all that hard, it's a lot more difficult and requires a lot more talent to sing well. At the end of I Won't See You Part 1, Shadows demonstrates his amazing range, hitting notes 2 octaves above middle C without sounding like a whiny girl. Never will you see a Gothenurg scene vocalist pull off something like that.

Also, there are a lot of awesome death metal guitarists but none of them come close to matching the talent of Synyster Gates. All of his solos are amazing, not just the speed but how awesomely smooth they are, it's almost a blur. The solo at the end of Second Heartbeat, one of the best ever, PERIOD! Not only is it insanely technical and fast, (i get eargasms everytime i hear it) it is also daammnnn catchy. It's not just a bunch of notes in a certain key strung together and played really really fast (which is what most death metal solos are like, though there are none that are picked as fast as Syn's solos), it has been excellently composed and the notes just fit together so damn well. The drummer is a god, but to see how good he really is, download the old version of Second Heartbeat, off the Hopelessly Devoted To You Volume 4 compilation. Nowhere in Waking The Fallen is he anywhere near the limit of his talent, which is a shame i guess.

Anyway, my point is that this album is the future of metal. It is far above the level of any other death metal or heavy metal band out there, both in technical talent and in mass appeal. People who write them off because of how they dress, or because they aren't hardcore enough are a disgrace to music fans everywhere, they obviosuly care more about image and what is 'cool' (face it people, hardcore/hXc/whatever kids are the teenyboppers of today) than the talent and sound that a band has. Don't waste your time settling for second best, buy this album!

Although, as many others are quick to point out, there are better bands out there in the world. But not every band out there can be, and if you only listen to the best band in the world, your CD collection will be mighty thin. It is obvious that these guys aren't here to replace Metalica and such metal bands or punk bands of equal caliber. They are here to make music that is enjoyable to listen to and if your willing to listen to that then get this CD. Some people will disagree with me and say that they're not worth listening to, but if everyone agreed about what music to listen to then music would get real boring real quick. Since you won't know whether you like these guys till you listen to them, go to there site and listen to the sample tracks and this will give you a feel of what they're like. Don't listen what everyone tries to tell or what i'm telling just listen and deside for yourself.

So, I started reading some of these reviews, and I had forgotten that normal people (non-metalheads) listen to A7X. You know, people who don't know what "death metal" and "black metal" actually refer to and are repulsed by all manners of screaming. This is that hazy area where good metal meets the mainstream. Also, you misguided souls who think City of Evil is a better album can stop reading right now. Go listen to Bat Country or watch The OC or something. All we'll do is piss each other off. But I digress.

Waking the Fallen is fantastic. Absolutely amazing. Not a bad song on the album. The guitar work is impressive and pretty. The screaming is solid. The singing is decent (I don't understand why he forgot how to sing after this album). The two combine very well on a few tracks. If you like epic music (be it Blind Guardian, Killswitch Engage, or Nile), you should find plenty to enjoy here. Dragonforce fans, stay away. This isn't the absurd, seizure-causing level of epic you're used to. It's dark, it's beautiful, and it's catchy. If you like metal, check it out. It may feel like a guilty pleasure at first, but you'll get past it. If you don't like metal, then I honestly don't know what to tell you. I don't know how your brains work when it comes to music.

There are heavier bands. There are softer bands. It doesn't matter who they sound like or who can do certain things better. It doesn't matter what music sub-genre these guys fall under (metalcore). Just listen to the album. It's damn good. I've accepted that no A7X album before or after this one will ever be good enough to lick Waking the Fallen's shoes. They've decided to start making crap. And that's okay. There are a lot of people out there who like crap. I feel that Avenged Sevenfold have already left their mark on the world.