Avenged Sevenfold Ringtones

American heavy metal group Avenged Sevenfold (also known as A7X) was founded in 1999 and is based in Huntington Beach, California. Vocalist M. Shadows, lead guitarist Synyster Gates, rhythm guitarist Zacky Vengeance, bassist Johnny Christ, and drummer Brooks Wackerman make up the current lineup of the band.

Avenged Sevenfold is renowned for their theatrical imagery on album covers and merchandise, in addition to their varied rock sound. With their debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet, the band established a metalcore sound, which they mostly carried over into their second album Waking the Fallen. But by the time of their third album and first big label release, City of Evil, the band had settled into a more conventional heavy metal sound. Before Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan, the band’s original drummer, passed away in 2009, the group continued to experiment with new sounds with their self-titled album and saw sustained success in the mainstream. With the assistance of former Dream Theater member Mike Portnoy, Avenged Sevenfold carried on in spite of his passing. In 2010, they released and embarked on a tour in support of their fifth album, Nightmare, which made its first number one debut on the Billboard 200.

Arin Ilejay, a drummer, joined the group in 2011 so they could tour and record. The only Avenged Sevenfold album with Ilejay on it was the band’s sixth studio album, Hail to the King, which came out in 2013. It would be written as an homage to their influences and have a heavy metal and hard rock aesthetic. In addition to the UK Albums chart, the Finnish, Brazilian, Canadian, and Irish charts all had Hail to the King at number one. Former Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman joined the group after Ilejay left in late 2014, but the public was not informed of the lineup change until 2015. Then, in October 2016, the group unexpectedly released The Stage, their seventh studio album, which debuted at number four on the US Billboard 200 chart. Their first conceptual album, The Stage, represents a further stylistic shift for the group as they go toward a progressive metal sound. In June 2023, the band released their highly experimental eighth studio album, Life Is but a Dream…

Over eight million albums have been sold worldwide by Avenged Sevenfold, who have released seven studio albums, one live album/DVD, two compilation albums, and eighteen singles to date. Their records have also garnered multiple certification awards, including five platinum album awards from the RIAA in their home country. For the Call of Duty: Black Ops series, they have also written four original songs, which were collected into the 2018 EP Black Reign. On Loudwire’s list of the Top 50 Metal Bands of All Time, the group came in at number 47.

Members of Avenged Sevenfold list the following bands as influences: Dream Theater, Pennywise, At the Gates, Helloween, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, Mr. Bungle, Elton John, Leonard Cohen, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, The Beatles, Anthrax, Testament, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and the Rolling Stones.

The musical style of Avenged Sevenfold has changed over the course of the group’s career. Consequently, the group has been classified into various extreme and heavy music genres, mainly hard rock, progressive metal, heavy metal, and alternative metal (especially in their album The Stage). The first two albums by the band were largely classified as metalcore records due to their initial style. Although the band’s debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet is almost entirely composed of metalcore, there are a few tracks that deviate from this style, most notably the punk rock-influenced “Streets” and the piano ballad “Warmness on the Soul”. The band once again demonstrated a metalcore sound on Waking the Fallen, but they also added more clean vocals and leaned slightly more toward metal than hardcore. Producer Andrew Murdock provided an explanation of this change in Waking the Fallen, the band’s DVD All Excess: “M. Shadows told me this record is screaming when I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet came out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen. Our goal is to create a record that combines elements of singing and screaming. I want to stop screaming. And there will only be singing on the next record.”

Avenged Sevenfold decided to completely eschew the metalcore subgenre for their third album, City of Evil, and instead focused on crafting a sound that was more in line with progressive metal, hard rock, and heavy metal. On their self-titled album, Avenged Sevenfold explores even more musical genres than in City of Evil. Two standout examples are “Dear God,” which has a country feel, and “A Little Piece of Heaven,” which has a Broadway show tune influence. The lead and rhythm guitar roles are mostly filled by brass instruments and a stringed orchestra. Additional deviations can be found in Nightmare, such as the piano ballad “Fiction,” the progressive metal-focused song “Save Me,” and the heavy metal sound of “God Hates Us,” which features extreme vocals and heavier instrumentation. Hail to the King, the group’s sixth studio album, exhibits a more riff-focused and traditional metal sound. The band delves deeper into progressive metal on their seventh album, The Stage, fusing it with thrash metal components. With Life Is but a Dream, their eighth album, the group adopts a more avant-garde metal sound.

Some have criticized Avenged Sevenfold for “not being metal enough”. Vocalist M. Shadows responded to this by saying, “We don’t play music to be called a metal band; we play music for the love of music.” Telling us we’re not punk enough is like that. Who gives a damn?” Among the prominent performers of the new wave of American heavy metal is Avenged Sevenfold.