Avenged Sevenfold
Waking The Fallen

Hello everyone! This is my second review and it will be a track-by-track analysis of the album "Waking The Fallen" by Avenged Sevenfold, their second work.

The album opens with the title track "Waking The Fallen", a short and eerie intro that leads directly into "Unholy Confession" (the only) single released, which features overwhelming sounds and a cleanly sung chorus: the true gem of this CD, a song that never tires. This is followed by "Chapter Four", another engaging song with a catchy and clean chorus. The fourth track, "Remenissions", is a song that alternates between a clean chorus accompanied by acoustic guitars with a flamenco style mixed with electric guitars, and the rest of the song in pure "Sounding The Seventh Trumpet" style, meaning intensely screamed. Next are the fiercely aggressive "Desescrate Through Reverence" (a song I appreciate very much) and the swift "Eternal Rest", a very beautiful song that loses its charm when it slows down and replaces the scream with a syrupy and misplaced singing. The next track "Second Heartbeat" is a song with a nice riff that might be repeated a bit too much, but it keeps your foot tapping at a constantly fast pace. For this, 6 minutes and 20 seconds might seem long, but the last 30/35 seconds of the song consist of an increasingly faster and more complicated solo.

The eighth track is "Radiant Eclipse", perhaps stretched out a bit too much, with a vaguely predictable bridge and a chorus that might be hit or miss. The ninth and tenth tracks are respectively "I Won't See You Tonight Part. 1" and "I Won't See You Tonight Part. 2"; the first is a successful 8 minutes and 55 seconds ballad, complete with strings and a hint of piano, in which you can notice M. Shadow singing perfectly at the top of his lungs (without scream) making it more lively compared to the previous "Warmness In The Soul". The second, however, lasts almost half as long and alternates wild screaming with a clean but energetic and not at all syrupy singing. The next "Clairvoyant Disease" is almost totally devoid of screaming and is a slow and calm song that leans towards emo sounds in the post-solo bridge. The last track of this CD is titled "And All Things Will End"; this final song alternates parts that remind us of Bad Religion with slowdowns, all with a bit of screaming in between, and in the end, we find a solo that is stretched out too long and poorly executed, ending up becoming nauseating.

In short, the O.C. quintet has evolved compared to their previous work, producing a very appreciated and varied album, definitely the best after "City Of Evil". Over and out.