Metal Anarchy

The rumors were true. Avenged Sevenfold’s new artificial intelligence themed concept  album “The Stage” is now officially available. The band revealed the news at the end of their special performance on top of Capitol Records in Los Angeles, CA. You can check out that set below:

M. Shadows told Rolling Stone the following about why they chose to do a surprise release:

“Well, man, a lot of it has to do with boredom. [Laughs] Everyone else is dropping the breadcrumbs, having four or five singles before their record comes out. It completely takes away the mystique of the record; by the time it actually comes out, you’ve already done 50 interviews about what the record’s about and is going to sound like. It’s 2016; people’s attention spans are so short at this point, who has time for three months of lead-up? You’ve got five guys over here who are very bored of that; so for us, it was about keeping the hype very short and sweet, and then executing on all levels. Here’s the record – we spent a long time on it, and it’s available for you now. And now we can all learn about the record together, after you hear it, instead of hearing all these things about it as we’re dribbling crumbs at you. We just said, ‘No BS this time — we’re just going to do everything that we want to do, from the live show to the merchandising, to how we present this thing and how we release it.’”

He also revealed that astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson guested on the track “Exist.” He said the following about that:

“The song came from the idea of wanting to replicate the Big Bang in a heavy-metal sort of way, like, ‘OK, this is what it would have sounded like when this happened!’ It’s like a huge classical piece. We love Gustav Holst’s ‘The Planets’, but no one’s really hit the Big Bang, so we did it! I wanted it to be all instrumental, and then Brian [guitarist Synyster Gates] was like, ‘Well, I think there should be some vocals on it.’ So we ended up with a compromise where it’s like, ‘OK, when the vocals come in, that’s Earth — that’s the first time that life starts after the cooling-down period of the Big Bang.’ Originally, we wanted to use a recording of Carl Sagan reading an excerpt from ‘The Pale Blue Dot’, but [his estate] isn’t really letting people use that. So we reached out to Neil.”

Fans can pick up limited edition merch this weekend at pop-up shops in New York City and Los Angeles. The New York store (located at 68 Greene St., NY, NY 10012) will be open Friday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday/Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The Los Angeles shop (located at 6615 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028) will be open Friday-Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“The Stage” Track Listing:

01. “The Stage”
02. “Paradigm”
03. “Sunny Disposition”
04. “God Damn”
05. “Creating God”
06. “Angels”
07. “Simulation”
08. “Higher”
09. “Roman Sky”
10. “Fermi Paradox”
11. “Exist”