Life Is but a Dream… by Avenged Sevenfold
Life Is but a Dream... is the eighth studio album by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold, released on June 2, 2023, through Warner Records. Its release follows nearly seven years after its predecessor, The Stage (2016), marking the band's longest gap between studio albums to date. It is also the first album to feature contributions from their late drummer Jimmy "The Rev" Sullivan since Nightmare (2010). Similar to The Stage, Life Is but a Dream... was produced by the band with Joe Barresi. It marks the band's return to Warner following a legal dispute between the band and Warner Music in the mid-2010s.
With their first album since 2016, Avenged Sevenfold take an unexpected turn into existentialism. Written over a span of four years that included the pandemic, <i>Life Is But a Dream…</i> was inspired by the philosophy and writings of French author and Nobel Prize winner Albert Camus. The hypnotic lead single “Nobody” sets a reflective and pensive tone with orchestral strings as singer M. Shadows delivers snaky, overlapping vocal lines. Follow-up “We Love You” is an abrupt change of pace, with dissonant guitar bursts and a frenetic, Mr. Bungle-like arrangement that smashes dizzying old-school thrash into a slide guitar interlude. The entire album is all over the place—ragtime piano (title track), chamber music (part of “Game Over”), electro-pop (a few songs)—but for A7X, it’s a good place to be.
