Avenged Sevenfold Tickets : The Band Has Changed Considerably Since Their First Album

Avenged Sevenfold Band has cited bands such as Bad Religion, Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Pantera, Dream Theater, Metallica, NOFX, Alice in Chains, Black Flag, Corrosion of Conformity, The Misfits, Slayer, The Vandals, Rage Against the Machine, Korn, Deftones and AFI as their artistic influences.Avenged Sevenfold's material spans multiple genres and has evolved over the band's entire career.

Initially, the band's debut album Sounding the Seventh Trumpet consisted almost entirely of metalcore sound; however, there were several deviations to this genre, most notably in Streets which adopts a punk style and Warmness on the Soul, which is a piano-oriented ballad.On Waking the Fallen, the band displayed the contemporary metalcore style once more, but added more clean vocals as well as more mature and intricate musical elements.

In the band DVD All Excess, producer Andrew Mudrock explained this transition: "When I met the band after Sounding the Seventh Trumpet had come out before they had recorded Waking the Fallen, M. Shadows said to me 'This record is screaming. The record we want to make is going to be half-screaming half-singing. I do not want to scream anymore. And the record after that is going to be all singing.

On City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold third album, the band chose to abandon the metalcore genre, developing a more hard rock style. Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled album, again, consists of several deviations to less consistent genres and styles from the album's main hard rock and heavy metal songs, most notably in Dear God, which adopts a country style and A Little Piece of Heaven, which is circled within the influence of Broadway show tunes, using primarily brass instruments and stringed orchestra to take over most of the role of the lead and rhythm guitar.

Nightmare contains further deviations, including a piano ballad called Fiction and a brief return to their metalcore roots on God Hates Us. The band has changed considerably since their first album, in which during that time they have been characterized as a heavy band with a screamed and growled vocal style combined with clean vocals, chugging guitar riffs and breakdowns that one can expect from the metalcore genre.

The band members admitted in a number of interviews that they considered disbanding at this point of time. However, on February 17, 2010, Avenged Sevenfold stated that they had entered the studio, along with now-former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy, to drum for the record, in place of the Rev.The single Nightmare was digitally released on May 18, 2010.A preview for the song was released on May 6, 2010 on Amazon, but was removed soon after for unknown reasons.

Mixing for the album had been completed in New York City, and Nightmare was finally released worldwide on July 27, 2010. It met with mixed to positive reviews from music critics but was well received by the fans. Nightmare beat sales projections easily, debuting at number one on the Billboard 200 with sales of 163,000 units in its first week.After finishing recording, in December, Portnoy and the band posted simultaneous statements on their websites stating that he will not be their replacement for The Rev.

On January 20, 2011, Avenged Sevenfold announced via Facebook that former Confide drummer Arin Ilejay will tour with them starting this year. Whether or not he will be joining the band on a permanent basis has not been decided yet.Avenged Sevenfold performed at the Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festivals on June 3/5, 2011 alongside other bands such as Alter Bridge, System of a Down, and In Flames.On April 2011, the band headlined the Golden God Awards held by Metal Hammer.