M. Shadows: It's OK If You Hate The New Album A7X

M. Shadows (Instagram @avengedsevenfold)

JAKARTA - During appearing on the latest episode of the podcast "Let There Be Talk" with rock and roll comedian Dean Delray, M. Shadows discussed the experimental properties of the latest albumIVEd Sevebfold, Life Is But A Dream...

Written and recorded for four years, produced by Joe Barresi and A7X in Los Angeles and mixed by Andy Wallace in Poconos, Pennsylvania, the album is a journey through an existential crisis; a very personal exploration of the meaning, purpose and value of human existence with anxiety about death that is constantly looming.

"With our current new album, all you see is 10 out of 10 reviews and zero from 10 reviews," said M. Shadows.

"But that's the best way because people who hate it really hate it. That's one of the things where, in 2023, having zeros out of 10, is actually better than anything you ask for, because people speak, and this is the strange society we live in today."

"All artists can do is reflect themselves at any time," he continued. "Nothing worse than when people try to put you in a box and want you to write the same music you wrote when you were in high school or 20 years old.

"It was a reflection of who we were at that time; we were aggressive, young people everywhere made certain types of music. And every type of recording has changed. But in particular this one is much more musical because it doesn't have to set foot entirely on metal. We have a lot of different eclectic influences throughout our lives that we've never really been able to measure.

"Like if you think about The Residents or Mr. Bule, all the different things we listen to as we grow up. And I think is where we are now. This is a different type of recording. The philosophy, everything, is different, so it won't be interesting to people who want the same thing or more or they are there in their lives right now.

"That doesn't mean they won't get here. Maybe they're not here right now. Maybe our job is to embrace them and say, 'Hey, we're at the end of the road at this bar. And let's hang out here. This is what we're doing now.'

"There are so many psychological things going into if people like this album or not or if they don't like it or what they were listening to at the time. And it's not our job to know; it's our job to put something we really support and respect.

"And we're going to see where it goes. It's hard to really talk about it, because there really isn't a correct or wrong answer. It's okay to hate this album."