During an appearance on this past Tuesday’s (March 28) edition of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s M. Shadows spoke about the band’s upcoming album “Life Is But A Dream…”, which is set to arrive on June 2 via Warner. Asked if the LP is a concept effort, the singer said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “It’s tied together in a way that we’re exploring themes about existentialism and absurdism. Some of this stuff is based off of the French philosopher Albert Camus and different sorts of existential ideas. So it all kind of plays together. It’s not like we have a song about partying all night and the next song is this really deep song about ego disillusion. It all plays within this weighty sort of subject matter. ‘The Stage’ was the same way, where it wasn’t like [QUEENSRŸCHE‘s] ‘Operation: Mindcrime’, where you’re hearing a story all the way through, but it has themes. So this is the same sort of idea, that musically and thematically they’re all in line.”
Regarding whether the recently released single “Nobody” is representative of the overall “Life Is But A Dream…” sound, Shadows said: “I sent this record to a few people that I know, and they’d already heard ‘Nobody’, and they come back and they go, ‘I can’t believe where this record takes us.’
“There was no good song on the record to put out and go, like, ‘Oh, this is a representation of… you’re gonna understand everything if you hear this.’ So we were in a situation where it just doesn’t really play by the rules in terms of what’s gonna go out on the radio station and everyone’s gonna get it,” he explained.
“The way I would describe it is the record has a bunch of colors and they stretch as far out as possible. Think of the universe, and ‘Nobody’ sits in the middle and it’s kind of like a black hole. It’s this big, weighty orchestra-driven existential crisis sucking in everything in its way. But the rest of the record kind of reaches out very widely and paints with bright colors, where this is kind of black-and-white and very dense.”
“Nobody”, AVENGED SEVENFOLD‘s first official music release since their 2016 album “The Stage”, delivers nearly six minutes of tension, groove, and dynamics. The song twists and turns beyond conventional songwriting and leans in on discomfort before letting go. The beautifully crafted stop-motion music video, which unfolds like a short film, is a stunning and powerful journey exploring the dichotomy between life and death, love and war, and follows the main character through an existential crisis. Stop motion is a handmade labor of love, often taking 90 minutes just to capture only two seconds of footage.
Prior to the track’s release, the band launched an elaborate and mysterious digital scavenger hunt with puzzles, ciphers, images, and blog posts all written by Chat GPT, DALL-E 2, and AI voice modifiers. What was initiated as a cryptic hacker campaign on socials, eventually lead fans to a web site full of challenges to complete over the past two weeks that ultimately lead to the single being “unlocked” for release.
The sprawling sound of “Nobody” is reflective of “Life Is But A Dream…” . Written and recorded over the span of four years, “Life Is But a Dream…” was inspired by the writing and philosophy of Albert Camus. Accordingly, the lyrics are rooted in existentialism and absurdism. Always on the cutting edge of music and technology, AVENGED SEVENFOLD has partnered with Berify to include an NFC tag with bonus content on all CDs, vinyl, cassettes and official merchandise sold on A7XWorld.com. Additionally, the cover art and packaging are by renowned artist Wes Lang. Bold and multi-layered, the band’s new album promises to be their most daring.
To date, AVENGED SEVENFOLD has sold over 10 million albums worldwide and earned two consecutive No. 1 albums on Billboard‘s Top 200 Albums chart (2010’s “Nightmare” and 2013’s “Hail To The King”) to go along with over a billion video views and a billion-plus Spotify streams, as well as multiple No. 1 singles on rock radio. The band is equally known for their spectacular live shows, selling out arenas and headlining the world’s most prestigious rock festivals.
AVENGED SEVENFOLD has announced an extensive “Life Is But A Dream…” North American tour, featuring support from ALEXISONFIRE. Produced by Live Nation, the first leg includes 13 cities across the U.S. and Canada, such as Mansfield, Québec City, Tinley Park, Calgary, and more. Additional cities and dates will be announced soon.