City of Evil

Released	June 7, 2005
Recorded	April 2005
Genre	Heavy metal
Length	72:52
Label	Warner Bros.
Producer	Avenged Sevenfold, Andrew Murdock

City of Evil is the third studio album and first major record label release by American rock band Avenged Sevenfold. The album was released on June 7, 2005 under the Warner Bros. Records label. Produced by Scott Gilman, City of Evil contains a more hard rock sound than Avenged Sevenfold's previous two albums, which had been classified into the metalcore genre. The album is also notable for the absence of screaming vocals. M. Shadows worked with vocal coach Ron Anderson, whose clients have included Axl Rose and Chris Cornell, for months before the album's release to achieve a sound that had "grit while still having the tone".

The album contains some of Avenged Sevenfold's most popular and famous songs, including "Bat Country", "Beast and the Harlot", "Burn it Down", and "Seize the Day". All four of these songs were released as singles between June 2005 and July 2006. City of Evil was very successful after its release, debuting at #30 on the Billboard Top 200 chart. The album was certified as a platinum record by the Recording Industry Association of America in August 2009, and has gone onto sell over 1,000,000 copies in the United States, and 2,000,000 total worldwide. As of 2010, it remains the best-selling out of Avenged Sevenfold's five studio albums.

Three of the songs off of the album, "Bat Country", "Beast and the Harlot" and "Seize the Day", were also released as music videos. Directors for these videos included Marc Klasfeld, Tony Petrossian, and Wayne Isham, respectively.

History

Previously, Avenged Sevenfold had written and released two albums, Sounding the Seventh Trumpet in 2001 and Waking the Fallen in 2003, under the Hopeless Records label Although neither album was a smash hit, both were certified gold by the RIAA. Waking the Fallen attracted several major record labels to the band, and eventually they signed with Warner Bros. Records after consideration of several others.

Musical changes

When they began to write the album, Avenged Sevenfold turned to their influences for a change in style. From the idea that none of their influences' music was heavy or extreme as theirs, they decided to change their style to a less heavy metal and more hard rock type. "When we started working on this record, we said, 'You know what? None of our favorite bands are super extreme, they just write really good melodic songs that are still heavy," said singer M. Shadows in an interview.

Another aspect of their music that the band decided to change was the use of screaming in their music. M. Shadows had had a surgery to remove a blood vessel in one of his vocal chords, which was likely caused by the frequent screaming and heavy singing in Avenged Sevenfold's music.^[3] According to The Rev, when Shadows screamed after the surgery it would cause the vocal chords to painfully flare up, making Shadows want the change.^[3] The Rev also commented that "he [Shadows] had gotten sick of screaming.

Shadows also stated that reasons for ending the band's screaming was to create a more unique style for Avenged Sevenfold. "We decided we didn't want to scream anymore. Instead, we wanted to make a rock record for the new ages...something with a lot of singing, textures and vocal harmonies, and we couldn't do any of that with all the screaming," he said.^[1]

M. Shadows' vocal changes

M. Shadows, after going through the surgery described above, made significant changes in his vocal style for City of Evil. After stopping screaming following the aforementioned vocal chord surgery, Shadows turned to Ron Anderson, a vocal coach that had previously worked with Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden. Shadows was specifically looking to add a more gritty, raspy tone to his voice and worked with Anderson for several months on this before City of Evil was recorded.

"Ron taught me how to have that grit to my voice while still having the tone. He brought all of that to the table and he brought that technique to my voice. I’ve worked with him for about a year and a half now, but I worked with him for nine months before the record," said Shadows, "I told him that I want my voice to sound different from everybody else, but I wanted those characteristics in my voice...It was one of those things that we just wanted to go all the way with it."^[4]

Reception

The album debuted at #30 on the Billboard Top 200 selling over 30,000 copies. It received positive profiles in Rolling Stone and All Music Guide, with Rolling Stone lauding the guitar work.^[7][8] In addition, "Bat Country" was one of the breakout singles of 2005, reaching #2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Charts, #6 on Billboard's Modern Rock Charts, and #1 on MTV's Total Request Live.^[9] The album was ranked #63 on Guitar World's "100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All-Time," and the band won "Best New Artist" at MTV's Video Music Awards, beating out artists like Rihanna, Panic at the Disco, James Blunt, Angels & Airwaves and Chris Brown.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Avenged Sevenfold.

City of Evil
No.	Title	Length
1.	"Beast and the Harlot"	5:41
2.	"Burn It Down"	4:58
3.	"Blinded in Chains"	6:35
4.	"Bat Country"	5:13
5.	"Trashed and Scattered"	5:55
6.	"Seize the Day"	5:32
7.	"Sidewinder"	7:01
8.	"The Wicked End"	7:10
9.	"Strength of the World"	9:14
10.	"Betrayed"	6:47
11.	"M.I.A."	8:46
12.	"Walk (Special Edition Bonus Track)"	5:15

Videography

City of Evil features most of the songs that Avenged Sevenfold has made videos for. On May 4, 2005, they released a promotional video for "Burn It Down", which was done in the same way as "Unholy Confessions" on Waking the Fallen (live video with dubbed music). On July 28, 2005, their first professional video for a song on the album, "Bat Country", was released. It was directed by Marc Klasfeld. On February 6, 2006, "Beast and the Harlot" was released. This was a few weeks after it had been leaked on YouTube.com. It was directed by Tony Petrossian. Most recently, on June 30, 2006, the video for "Seize the Day" was released on Avenged Sevenfold's MySpace. The video was directed by Wayne Isham.

Personnel

Avenged Sevenfold

• M. Shadows — lead vocals
• Synyster Gates — lead guitar, backing vocals, piano
• Zacky Vengeance — rhythm guitar, backing vocals
• Johnny Christ — bass, backing vocals
• The Rev — drums, percussion, backing vocals, piano

Additional musicians

• Brian Haner Sr., Suzy Haner, Valary DiBenedetto and Michelle DiBenedetto on "M.I.A"
• Brian Haner Sr. on "Sidewinder"
• Justin Meacham - Additional piano on "Sidewinder"
• The Rev played piano on Seize the Day per the album liner notes.

Production

• Scott Gilman - Producer, orchestrations, string conductor, additional keyboards and percussion

City of Evil Download