Review by Rexorcist for Avenged Sevenfold - Waking the Fallen (2003)

OK, nobody liked the Avenged Sevenfold debut album, and neither did I.  They say this one's pretty good for the fans, though, so I've got big hopes for this.  Finally getting around to these guys, I'm eagerly awaiting the moment I get to turn on City of Evil for the first time, but I don't want to do that until I get a really good idea of how the band evolved within the first three albums.

Like the first album, this starts out with a decent intro which gets up right into the darker vibes the band is going for.  Unholy Confessions felt dull, under-produced and dreary in its tropes.  It pains me that it became a music video.  But I found that Chapter Four was much more packed, keeping a consistent melodic vibe with its overlapping vocals and slight Gothic touch, and even had a lead riff vaguely reminiscent of the energy of my favorite franchise to compare metal songs to: F-Zero.  There's definitely a poppier thing going on here, but that's an improvement from the chaos of the debut album.  This definitely deserved to be the lead single for this album.  Remenissions starts out with the unspoken combo that I call "powercore," a genre I would totally kickstart if I were in a metal band.  Unfortunately, this is where it becomes clear that the band is steering too close to the "similar tempos" trope that many genres fall victim to.  I wasn't expecting the Latin acoustic segment, though.  Weirdly added, but somehow nice.  Desecration Through Reverence shows a bit more focus on mood-building and justifies the existence of the shifting tropes in a single song in the follow-up to their debut.  It feels so much more natural than everything the debut features.

I didn't expect many differences out of Side B, but I was hoping.  Turns out, my hopes were satisfied even for a little while.  As soon as this slower, alternative metalcore album with a deeper emotional vibe ends, the album steers RIGHT INTO POWER METAL like it was nothing.  This side ends with a basic combination of the temp tricks of the last two songs, and I can't really say this decision does anything for the album.  Despite the progressive nature and melodic prowess, it's a filler song.  Radiant Eclipse is slower, more alternative and rooted in traditional metal ballad behavior while maintaining the signature edge.  This six minute track really was a breath of fresh air that, unlike the pop rock track in the debut, Warmness of the Soul, which felt like a relief of fresh air from the crappy metalcore, is a perfectly fitting alternative song that completely continues the darker vibes of the album while building on previously established influences on this album to become its own thing.  Next was I Won't See You Tonight, Pt. 1.  One look at the length and I thought to myself, "What kind of song on a metalcore album like this lasts nine minutes!?"  My first thought was a fairly proggy ballad which probably builds on the gothic elements suggested by the secondary genre tag on this album's RYM page.  It gained a very slight heaviness from its standard ballad energy at the start, but it lasts that way throughout the whole nine minutes, so I only got about two thirds of it right.  It's really just an overlong ballad.

So now that that was over with, right back into the screechy metalcore like it's not a jarring difference.  This is Part 2.  They could've at least built into the conflict rather than making it instantaneous.  And of course, this song goes right into djenty weirdness to add another trope to the mix... although, this is the first song in this overlong album to do so, so I'm not too bothered by the trope.  Ironically, Clairvoyant Disease goes right back into alternative ballad territory, once again creating a jarring effect on the flow.  And finally, there's And All Things will End, which starts off with a riff similar to many Iced Earth songs, vaguely reminiscing thrash and power, but feeling right for the album here.  It's got much of the same drama as well, but the melodies are only decent and it doesn't hold a candle to any Iced Earth classics.

OK, I'm not gonna call this one of my favorite metalcore albums, but I'd say this album made AVS an easy band to LIKE, as opposed to an easy band to LOVE.  Their songs are poppy enough, maybe too poppy for metalcore and never displaying high points of creativity, but they try as much as they can with the genre they chose for themselves at the time and managed to keep things fairly entertaining with some sense of variety and a much better sense of emotion.