It's official, Avenged Sevenfold have released their seventh studio album, The Stage. The band made it official during a rooftop performance on October 27th atop LA's famous Capitol Records building, their new label.
The band released the title track earlier this month, and have unveiled the album which features 11 tracks. According to the press release:
THE STAGE 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 album is available on Amazon, iTunes and can be streamed via Spotify below:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxDGjZDVaVI[/youtube]
The band are launching pop up shops with exclusive merch in NY and LA:
This weekend, fans can pick up exclusive band merch at Avenged Sevenfold pop-up shops in New York City and Los Angeles. The New York store (located at 68 Greene St., NY, NY 10012) will be open Friday from 11am – 9pm and Sat/Sun from 11am – 8pm. The Los Angeles shop (located at 6615 Hollywood Blvd, LA, CA 90028) will be open Fri-Sun from 11am -8pm. Both locations will be carrying limited-edition items created specifically for these events.
Also, Rolling Stone just posted an in-depth interview with M. Shadows about the making of the album and the lyrical content that's worth a read.
