Avenged Sevenfold - The Stage (2016) [Official Digital Download 24-bit/96kHz]

After a three year absence, veteran California metal band Avenged Sevenfold returns with this top five album, preceded by the almost nine minute title track single "The Stage". The album is the follow-up to Avenged Sevenfold's 2013 release, "Hail To The King", which entered The Billboard 200 at No.1. Co-produced by the band and Joe Barresi (Queens of the Stone Age, Tool), "The Stage" is a work of immense scope and ambition, featuring 11 panoramic tracks tied together by an Artificial Intelligence theme. Inspired by the writings of Carl Sagan and Elon Musk, the album is the band's first thematic release. While the term “AI” conjures up images of robots and fantasy films, the band steers clear of a science fiction storyline. Instead, the album sees them taking a futurist's look at the accelerated rate at which technology's intelligence is expanding and what that means - good and bad - for the future.

The album's epic 15-minute-plus closing track, "Exist", features a guest appearance by award-winning astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson giving a spoken word performance he penned specifically for the album.

The seventh studio long-player from the veteran California-based metal ensemble, and their first new collection of music to feature ex-Bad Religion drummer Brooks Wackerman behind the kit, Stage sees Avenged Sevenfold rolling up their sleeves and delivering an ambitious concept LP. Dropped with little to no promotion — WWE superstar and Fozzy frontman Chris Jericho leaked the album’s original title, Voltaic Oceans, via his Instagram account a month prior to the release — the narrative concerns itself with the Orwellian consequences of a world struggling to adapt to the myriad complexities of artificial intelligence — there’s even a spoken word appearance by celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Despite some forays into Floyd-ian space rock — the soloing in the orchestra-driven “Roman Sky” is positively Gilmour-esque — the 11-track set mostly sticks to the kind of propulsive, melodic carnage that fans have come to expect from the group, albeit with a progressive metal twist. Avenged Sevenfold may have expanded their sonic horizons, but Stage is more Operation: Mindcrime-era Queensrÿche than it is Muse, and for all its opining on nanotechnology and interstellar travel, it still feels rooted in heavy metal tradition.

Tracklist:

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


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