Metal Anarchy

During a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk,” Avenged Sevenfold singer M. Shadows discussed the band’s new album “Life Is But A Dream…” (out June 2). According to him, the effort is “tied together” with “themes about existentialism and absurdism.”

Shadows said the following:

“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.”

He also added the following when asked if the first single, “Nobody,” is a good representation of the full album:

“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.

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.”

[via Blabbermouth]