Avenged Sevenfold released Avenged Sevenfold on October 30, 2007, taking responsibility for producing their fourth studio album themselves. Following City of Evil, the band wanted room to explore ideas that didn’t fit neatly into the sound listeners already knew. The resulting ten songs ranged from direct, forceful singles to orchestral horror and a country-influenced closing track.
Producing the album was a decision they had been preparing for. In an interview with Prime Video Magazine, Synyster Gates explained that the musicians had spent time studying records and production techniques. They met with outside producers, but scheduling problems helped settle the question: they would oversee the sessions themselves. That gave the group responsibility for deciding which experiments belonged together on the record.
M. Shadows told Metal Hammer in 2007 that they had written 24 experiments and could have assembled a much heavier album from that material. Instead, they selected songs on their individual strengths. “In the end, we just took the best 10, whatever their styles.” Immediate melodies mattered, too. Shadows wanted the hooks to register quickly while leaving space for unexpected arrangements.
The biggest undertaking was “A Little Piece of Heaven,” which grew from drummer Jimmy “The Rev” Sullivan’s piano ideas. Gates recalled to Metal Hammer that Sullivan regularly played original material for their friends and took particular pleasure in this song’s sweet, catchy chorus against its gruesome story. The contrast became central to its character: an elaborate musical setting carrying a deliberately outrageous horror narrative.
Finishing it required persistence. The band had considered the song for a Halloween EP, but Gates and Sullivan became overwhelmed by the arrangement while trying to complete the album. Shadows kept encouraging them to continue. Steve Bartek and Marc Mann, both associated with Oingo Boingo, helped realize the piece; Shadows described using a 26-piece orchestra and a full choir. Once the label heard the completed recording, Gates recalled, it wanted the song on the album.
The more direct material received equally deliberate attention. “Almost Easy,” written by The Rev, became a showcase for the band’s collective vocals as well as its rhythm section. Shadows told Prime Video Magazine that its appeal as a lead single came from combining force with a chorus listeners could readily grasp. It offered a compact entry into a record whose later songs would take much stranger turns.
Those turns were built into the running order. Strings decorated “Afterlife” and “Brompton Cocktail,” while the closing stretch moved through “Lost,” “A Little Piece of Heaven” and “Dear God.” The last song’s country influence and pedal steel made it a particularly unexpected finish. Shadows explained that the band had chosen those songs over a more conventionally heavy ending because they considered them stronger material.
The experiments also became part of Avenged Sevenfold’s concert repertoire. In a 2015 retrospective on their official website, the band acknowledged that the album had received some hostile reviews, then pointed to what followed: “Critical Acclaim,” “Almost Easy,” “Afterlife” and “A Little Piece of Heaven” had become staples of their live show.
