AVENGED SEVENFOLD unveils the official music video for “Cosmic,” directed by Chris Hopewell, as a highlight from their latest album, “Life Is But A Dream…” released via Warner in June 2023
The LP stormed onto the scene, garnering 36,000 equivalent album units in the U.S. during its debut week, securing AVENGED SEVENFOLD a respectable No. 13 position on the Billboard 200 chart.
Back in December, AVENGED SEVENFOLD guitarist Synyster Gates told Metal Hammer magazine about the response to “Life Is But A Dream…”: “I think with an album like this, time is on its side. I’ve been using this analogy: both of my parents’ favorite band is THE BEATLES. My mom hates everything post-‘Sgt. Pepper’s’, my dad couldn’t care less about the early stuff. They both still respect the fuck out of it, but it’s not for them. So, for my mom, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’ was the death of THE BEATLES, and I think for a lot of people, this is the death of AVENGED SEVENFOLD. But for a lot of other people, it’s a birth. The birth of a different band.”
When asked if he had read any more online comments about the album, Synyster said: “Funnily enough, I thought it could go either way. We’ve actually had really amazing support from the press, so I don’t want to make people think that we feel like we aren’t supported by the press at all. I actually feel it’s good that it just hasn’t been ignored. Even the bad reviews, people have talked about it. People are still interested in us, so that’s all I could ask for, really. The negative comments, I feel they’re the minority. I think people have been really thoughtful in considering this album.”
AVENGED SEVENFOLD vocalist M. Shadows previously spoke about the reactions to “Life Is But A Dream…” during an appearance on the “Let There Be Talk” podcast.
“With our new record right now, all you see are 10-out-of-10 reviews and zero-out-of-10 reviews,” M. Shadows said. “But it’s the best way to be because the people that hate it absolutely hate it. It’s one of those things where, in 2023, having a zero out of 10 is actually better than anything you could ask for, because people are talking, and it’s a weird society we live in at this point.”
“All artists can do is be a reflection of themselves at any point in time,” he continued. “There’s nothing worse than when people are trying to put you in a box and want you to write the same music you wrote when you were in high school or 20 years old. Those were reflections of who we were back then; we were aggressive, young kids that were just kind of all over the place making a certain type of music. And every record kind of changed. But this one in particular — much more musical in terms of not having to have one foot fully in metal.
“It’s got so many different eclectic influences that we’ve had our whole life that we never really were able to kind of quantify. Like if you think about THE RESIDENTS or MR. BUNGLE, all these different things that we were growing up listening to. And I think is just where we’re at right now. It’s a different type of record. The philosophy, all of it, is different, and so it’s not gonna appeal to people that want the same thing or more of the same or they’re there in their life right now. It doesn’t mean they’re not gonna get here. Maybe they’re just not here right now.
“Maybe it’s our job to put our arm around them and say, ‘Hey, we’re up the street at this bar. And let’s hang out here. This is what we’re doing now.’
“There are so many psychological things that go into if people like records or not or if they don’t or what they’re listening to at the time. And it’s not really our job to figure that out; it’s just our job to put something out that we totally back and we appreciate. And we’ll see where it goes. It’s hard to really talk about it, ’cause there’s really no right or wrong answer. It’s okay to hate this record.”
After a five-year hiatus from festivals, AVENGED SEVENFOLD made a triumphant return on May 19, 2023, captivating fans at Welcome To Rockville held at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s live performance spree kicked off earlier that month with a highly anticipated show on May 12, 2023, at AREA15 in Las Vegas, Nevada, marking their first concert since June 2018.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s illustrious career boasts over 10 million albums sold worldwide, highlighted by two consecutive No. 1 albums on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart with “Nightmare” (2010) and “Hail To The King” (2013). Their digital presence is equally impressive, amassing over a billion video views and a billion-plus Spotify streams, coupled with multiple No. 1 singles on rock radio. AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s unwavering impact continues to resonate globally, solidifying their status as one of the most influential bands in modern rock.